The speech came a little more than a week after a police officer in Kenosha, Wis., shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, seven times in the back as he leaned over into his car, sparking at-times violent protests in the city.

It was during those protests that two demonstrators were shot and killed and another injured. Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old police admirer from Illinois, was arrested and charged in the killings. Trump has announced plans to visit Kenosha on Tuesday, over objections from the state’s governor and Kenosha’s mayor, both Democrats.

Over the weekend, meanwhile, a man was shot and killed in Portland as pro-Trump counterprotesters clashed with left-wing demonstrators who have been protesting in the city for more than 90 consecutive days following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.

Though it is unclear whether his shooting was linked to the confrontations, the victim’s hat bore the insignia of Patriot Prayer — a far-right group whose members have previously clashed with protesters in Portland.

In his speech on Monday, Biden pushed back against Republicans’ assertions, reiterated by multiple speakers at last week’s Republican National Convention, that the chaos and unrest of the past few months are a harbinger of what is to come should Biden defeat Trump in November.

Biden and his allies have pointed out that the unrest currently taking place is happening under Trump’s watch.

Biden forcefully pushed back against the notion that his presidency would stoke more violence. “What's their proof?" he asked, before saying, "The violence we’re seeing is in Donald Trump's America. These are not images of some imagined Joe Biden America in the future, these are images of Donald Trump's America today.”

“He keeps telling you if only he was president, it wouldn't happen,” Biden added with a chuckle.

“Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is reelected?” Biden asked.

He also doubled down on condemning the recent spate of violence.

“I want to be clear about all of this, rioting is not protesting. Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting,” Biden said, calling for those responsible for violence and property damage to be prosecuted. “Violence will not bring change, it will only bring destruction. It's wrong in every way.”

The former vice president also charged that while Trump has been in the White House, he has failed to effectively respond to multiple crises — including the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing economic fallout — that “keep multiplying.”

Trump, Biden said, is “an incumbent president who makes things worse, not better. An incumbent president who sows chaos rather than providing order.”

In an interview on Fox News, Trump campaign press secretary Hogan Gidley called Biden’s allegations in his prepared remarks “a total lie,” and turned the accusation back on Democrats. Gidley pointed to protesters who surrounded and harassed Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) as he left the White House after Trump’s convention speech last Thursday, and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), who in 2016 encouraged public confrontations of Trump officials.

“This is their platform and plan,” Gidley charged. “They want this chaos and they want to sow division in this country. So often, Democrats accuse Republicans doing things they themselves are guilty of actually doing” he argued.

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