Mike Pence, the U.S. vice-president, has warned voters that they won’t be safe if Joe Biden wins the White House in November election.
“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.
Mike Pence described 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.
“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 damned Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, for saying there is an “implicit bias” against minorities and “systemic racism” in the U.S.
The U.S vice-president Mike 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 chose a theme of “Land of Heroes”, and the Mr Pence spoke from Baltimore’s Fort McHenry, where the city was protected against the British in the War of 1812, inspiring Francis Scott Key to jot down the U.S. national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner.
For three and a half years, Mike Pence has been President Donald Trump’s most loyal companion praising his virtues and executing his directives.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Trump To Send Federal Law Enforcement To Wisconsin
On Wednesday night, Pence’s aim was to pitch for the president’s re-election by touting his achievements and attempting to reframe his sometimes sharp edges as an asset, not a shortcoming.
Pence, like many of the Republicans this week, had to perform a exquisite dance – talking up the president’s record, and then explaining the confusion that has hit the nation in the past six months.
In a line that some will find nationalistic and others will see it as a racially tinged dog-whistle, he said: “The choice in this election is whether America remains America.”
The Democrats and the Republicans over the past two weeks have shared clearly different opinions of what is right and wrong with America today. In 69 days, voters will have a chance to register their views, as well.
Hours before Pence started speaking, the National Basketball Association, Women’s National Basketball Association and Major League Soccer delayed games after some players declined to be part of the protest over the Kenosha shooting.
Mike Pence’s comments came after three people were shot, two injured, during a third night of unrest on Tuesday over the police shooting three days earlier of Jacob Blake, 29, in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Pence did not touch on the incident, which has provoked protests against police cruelty that have broken out across the nation over the past three months.
Earlier on Wednesday, President Donald Trump said he would send federal law enforcement to Kenosha by agreement with the state’s governor.
The U.S. Department of Justice said a federal civil rights investigation had been opened into the shooting of Jacob Blake.
The former vice-president Joe Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, said earlier on Wednesday they had spoken to Blake’s family.
Mr Blake, who was shot several times in the back from close range, is currently paralysed from the waist down.
Joe 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.”
Hammering home a recurring theme of the Republican convention, Mike Pence described 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 U.S vice-president quarreled that the Democrat would “set America on a path of socialism and decline”.
The Democrats, too, at their convention last week revealed in doom-laden words what would happen if President Donald Trump won another four years in the White House.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Donald Trump Jr. Denies Rumors That He Was On Cocaine During His RNC Speech
Pence has undergone recent rumors that he might be dropped by Trump from the Republican ticket in favour of some other running mate. But his position looked secured as he accepted his vice-presidential nomination on Wednesday night with glowing praise of his boss.
In 2016, Pence a former Indiana governor and conservative Christian was Donald Trump’s political bridge to biblical voters, a vital bloc with the Republican electoral base.
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.”
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.”
