Biden denounces riots and protest violence [Video]

• The recent deadly clashes during the ongoing protests have prompted Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to speak out against violence.
• Biden condemned rioting, looting, setting fires, and other violent acts during a speech in Pittsburgh on Monday.
• Biden also blamed President Trump for stoking the flames of racial discord and “his failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia.”

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden spoke out against violence following another deadly clash during the ongoing protests.

Biden declared in a speech in Pittsburgh on Monday, “Rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting. It’s lawlessness, plain and simple. … Violence will not bring change. It will only bring destruction. It’s wrong in every way.”

“We must not burn. We have to build,” he continued.

The former vice president’s statements came after Trump and other speakers at the Republican National Convention claimed that Biden has been soft on crime and is catering to the whims of the Democratic Party’s far left.

Biden addressed these claims, saying, “Ask yourself: Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioting? Really?”

The nationwide protests sparked earlier this summer when George Floyd was killed during an arrest in Minneapolis. The public outrage sparked anew in late August after a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back.

The protests have also sparked debate and scrutiny as vandalism, looting, and riots grew rampant. Violent clashes also broke out between Trump supporters and protesters, claiming several lives.

Trump has repeatedly spoken out against the protests, calling protesters “radical-left criminals” and deploying federal agents clad in combat gear to “restore peace.”

Biden, meanwhile, pointed out that Trump himself had been stoking the flames of racial discord in an effort to cater to his supporters and boost his reelection chances in November.

Biden declared in his speech, “He can’t stop the violence — because for years he has fomented it.”

He then asked, “Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is reelected?”

Biden also called out Trump for “his failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia.”

During a press briefing on Monday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany stated that “The president is not going to weigh in on” the actions of Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager charged for killing two protesters in Kenosha last week.

Source: Aol.com