Shooting of Jacob Blake

Jacob Blake, the black man who was shot seven times by a Kenosha police officer, released a video message from his hospital bed. The video was posted by @money_mike_la on Instagram and shared publicly by Ben Crump, Blake's attorney, on Twitter.

"I just wanna say [...] there's a lot more life to live out there. Your life, and not only just your life, your legs – something that you need to move around and forward in life – can be taken from you like this, man," he said snapping his fingers.

"Twenty-four hours, every 24 hours it's pain, it's nothing but pain. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to sleep, it hurts to move from side-to-side, it hurts to eat," Blake continues. "Please, I'm telling you, change your lives out there. We can stick together, make some money, make everything easier for our people out there, man, because there's so much time that's been wasted."

When asked whether systemic racism is a problem in the United States during his trip to Kenosha on Tuesday, President Trump refused to answer the question directly and instead focussed on "violence we've seen in Portland and here and other places."

"The fact is that we've seen tremendous violence and we will put it out very, very quickly if given the chance," so Trump.

Addressing whether there is a need for structural change to the law enforcement, he said: "Well I think the people are calling for structural change. And then you take the people of Kenosha that aren't here and that you won't see and that aren't protesting, but they want change also. They want to see law and order. That's the change they want. They want the police to be police."

"They want people that are going to keep them safe, where their houses aren't broken into. Where they're not raped and murdered. That's what they want. And they're protesters, too, but they don't walk down the street... so, you know, just the way it is," he added.

During President Trump's visit to Kenosha, he addressed the family of Jacob Blake, who was shot seven times in the back by a police officer.

"I feel terribly for anybody that goes through that. As you know, it's under investigation," Trump said. "I hope they come up with the right answer. It's a complicated subject, to be honest with you. But I feel terribly for anybody who has to go through -- and I didn't get to speak to the mother, I hear she's a fine woman. I hear from the pastor, a really fine woman. But you can see when I spoke with the pastors, I see exactly what it is and they understand where I am. And if we can help we're going to help but it is a question. It's under investigation. A lot of things happened with that and other things, frankly, that we're looking at very, very closely."

After the White House announced Trump would visit Kenosha on Tuesday to survey the damage caused by last week's protests following the shooting of Jacob Blake, Mayor John Antaramian (D) said: "from our perspective, our preference would have been for him not to be coming at this point in time."

"All presidents are always welcome and campaign issues are always going on. But it would have been, I think, better had he waited to have for another time to come." Antaramian added.

Antaramian further stated that the city supports peaceful protests and that the people had "every right to protest," and added that "our biggest problem really did come from people coming from outside the area and causing a great deal of damage and destruction."