RNC 2020: Pence warns Americans 'won't be safe' if Biden wins

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionPence: Stakes in this election never higher

US Vice-President Mike Pence has warned that violence will spread in American cities if Joe Biden wins the White House in November.

“The hard truth is you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America,” said President Donald Trump’s deputy in a keynote speech to the Republican convention.

Mr Pence depicted the vote as a choice between law-and-order and lawlessness.

He spoke amid nightly protests over the police shooting of a black man in Wisconsin on Sunday.

What did Pence say?

“The American people know we don’t have to choose between supporting law enforcement and standing with African-American neighbours to improve the quality of life in our cities and towns,” said Mr Pence.

He blasted Mr Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, for saying there is an “implicit bias” against minorities and “systemic racism” in the US.

  • Where does Donald Trump stand on key issues?
  • Republicans scrap party platform. What that means…

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media caption‘I would crawl through broken glass to vote for Trump in this election’

Mr Pence said: “Joe Biden would double down on the very policies that are leading to unsafe streets and violence in America’s cities.”

The third night of the Republican convention adopted a theme of “Land of Heroes”, and the vice-president spoke from Baltimore’s Fort McHenry, where the city was defended against the British in the War of 1812, inspiring Francis Scott Key to write the US national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner.

What’s the fallout from the Kenosha shooting?

Hours before Mr Pence began speaking the National Basketball Association, Women’s National Basketball Association and Major League Soccer postponed games after some players refused to take part in protest over the Kenosha shooting.

Mr Pence’s remarks came after three people were shot, two fatally, during a third night of unrest on Tuesday over the police shooting three days earlier in Kenosha, Wisconsin, of Jacob Blake, 29.

  • Police officer named in Jacob Blake shooting

The vice-president did not refer to the incident, which has inflamed protests against police brutality that have erupted across the nation over the past three months.

Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Trump said he would send federal law enforcement to Kenosha by agreement with the state’s governor.

The US Department of Justice said a federal civil rights investigation had been opened into the shooting of Mr Blake.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionJoe Biden: Will it be third time lucky in 2020?

How has the Biden team reacted to Blake shooting?

Mr Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, said earlier on Wednesday they had spoken to Mr Blake’s family.

Mr Blake, who was shot multiple times in the back from close range, is currently paralysed from the waist down.

  • The Joe Biden story
  • What Biden wants to do

Mr Biden said in a video posted by his campaign: “Put yourself in the shoes of every black father and black mother in this country, and ask: Is this what we want America to be? Is this the country we should be?”

The Democrat added: “Protesting brutality is a right and absolutely necessary, but burning down communities is not protest. It’s needless violence.”

What else did Pence say?

Hammering home a recurring theme of the Republican convention, Mr Pence depicted Mr Biden, known as a political moderate over a decades-long career in Washington, as “nothing more than a Trojan horse for a radical left”.

The vice-president argued that the Democrat would “set America on a path of socialism and decline”.

Image copyright
Getty Images

Image caption

The president joined Mr Pence with a surprise appearance at the conclusion of his speech

The Democrats, too, at their convention last week warned in doom-laden tones what would happen if Mr Trump won another four years in the White House.

Mr Pence has endured recent speculation that he might be dumped by Mr Trump from the Republican ticket in favour of some other running mate. But his position looked impregnable as he accepted his vice-presidential nomination on Wednesday night with glowing praise of his boss.

In 2016, Mr Pence – a former Indiana governor and conservative Christian – was Mr Trump’s political bridge to evangelical voters, a vital bloc with the Republican electoral base.

Who else spoke on Wednesday?

Wednesday night’s law-and-order message at the Republican convention was reinforced by other speakers, including South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.

She said: “From Seattle and Portland to Washington and New York, Democrat-run cities across this country are being overrun by violent mobs.

“People that can afford to flee have fled. But the people that can’t – good, hard-working Americans – are left to fend for themselves.”

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media caption‘Trump’s actions speak louder than stickers or slogans’

Burgess Owens, an African-American former NFL player now running for Congress in Utah, said: “This November, we stand at a crossroads.

“Mobs torch our cities while popular members of Congress promote the same socialism that my father fought against in World War II.”

The convention also heard from Clarence Henderson, a civil rights activist who joined the peaceful lunch counter protests against racial segregation in 1960 Greensboro, North Carolina.

As other black speakers at the convention have done, Mr Henderson rejected a longstanding Democratic claim that Mr Trump is racist.

“His policies show his heart,” Mr Henderson said. “He has done more for black Americans in four years than Joe Biden has done in 50.”

source: bbc.com