Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden sets out the need for justice and safety — and why Donald Trump, stoking violence through his statements and tweets, cannot provide it for Americans.

In a 25-minute speech from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Biden addressed the issues raised by anti-racism marches and the recent confrontations which have killed two marchers and a member of a pro-Trump militia.

The news is going to get worse and worse before it gets better and better. And the American people deserve to have it straight from the shoulder….

The incumbent president is incapable of telling us the truth, incapable of facing the facts and incapable of healing. He doesn’t want to shed light, he wants to generate heat and he’s stoking violence in our cities.

Soon after Biden spoke, Trump justified the killings of marchers Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum, slain in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Tuesday by right-wing militia member Kyle Rittenhouse.

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Biden was unstinting in his denunciation of violence — of deadly police against unarmed Black Americans, by right-wing militias, and of individuals exploiting the mass protests across the US.

We have to stand against violence in every form it takes. Violence we’ve seen again and again and again, of unwarranted police shooting, excessive force, seven bullets in the back of Jacob Blake. Knee on the neck of George Floyd, killing of Breonna Taylor in her own apartment, violence of extremists and opportunists, right wing militias.

And to derail any hope and support for progress, the senseless violence of looting and burning and destruction of property. I want to make it absolutely clear, so I’m going to be very clear about all of this, rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting. It’s lawlessness, plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted.

He then turned to Trump, who is planning a photo opportunity in Kenosha today, nine days after Jacob Blake was shot seven times by a police offer and a week after Huber and Rosenbaum were killed.

We need justice in America. We need safety in America. We’re facing multiple crises. Crises that under Donald Trump have kept multiplying. COVID, economic devastation, unwarranted police violence, white nationalists, a reckoning on race, declining faith in the birth of the right American future. There’s no reason why we can’t just do so much more than we’re doing.

The common threat — the incumbent president who makes things worse, not better, an incumbent president who sows chaos rather than providing order. An incumbent president who fails in the basic duty of the job, which is to advance the truth that all of us know, that we’re all born with the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

He cited the declaration by Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway last Thursday, “One of his closest political advisors in the White House doesn’t even bother to speak in code, just comes out and she says it: ‘The more chaos, violence, the better it is for Trump’s reelection.'”

Trump Defends Killings

In a Twitter spree on Sunday, Trump encouraged right-wing supporters, including the militias, to continue confrontation of the marches.

But yesterday, he was put on the defensive by Biden’s statement. He lied that “for months Joe Biden has repeated the monster lie that this is a peaceful protest” — the large majority of marches, including last weekend’s March on Washington, have been peaceful — and that Biden had blamed police for the violence of the militias and fringe elements.

He declined to condemn his supporters’ use of paintballs and pepper spray against protesters in Portland, Oregon, which culminated in the killing of a Patriot Prayer militia member. Then he defended Rittenhouse’s killing of marchers in Kenosha.

That was an interesting situation. He was trying to get rid of — away from them and he fell and then they very violently attacked him.

Rittenhouse was pursued by demonstrators after militiamen fired into the march. He fell to the ground and fired his AR-15 rifle as Huber, using a skateboard, tried to disarm him.

He avoided any criticism of the militias: “I tell you what they are protesting. They see a city like Chicago where 78 people were shot and 13 died, or a city like New York where the crime wave went through the roof. Or a city like Portland where the city is ablaze all the time.”

Biden foreshadowed Trump’s remarks:

Donald Trump adds fuel to every fire because he refuses to even acknowledge that there’s a racial justice problem in America because he won’t stand up to any form of violence. He’s got no problem with right-wing militia, white supremacists, and vigilantes with assault weapons often better armed than the police….

He may believe mouthing the words ‘law and order’ makes him strong, but his failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows how weak he is.