Trump opens Kenosha event by inviting attendees to remove face masks

President said ‘look how fast you took that off’, following mask comments

Donald Trump invited attendees at an event in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to remove their face masks moments before beginning a round-table discussion on community safety.

The US president was meeting with community members and leaders following protests against the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a black man, last week.

The roundtable also included two pastors from Mr Blake’s mother's church, who were the only black people in attendance.

The White House said it had reached out to Mr Blake's family to arrange a meeting, which they had declined.

Mr Trump welcomed round-table attendees without a mask.

He then encouraged them to remove their own “if you feel more comfortable”.

“[If] you’ll say a couple of words, you might want to take the masks off, otherwise you can leave them on,” said the president. “Either way you want.”

Then, as someone appeared to take off their mask, the president pointed and commented: “Look how fast you took that off”.

The roundtable, which was held indoors, comes amid a pandemic that has seen more than 6 million Americans contract the coronavirus and 180,000 lives lost.

Mr Trump has largely avoided wearing masks in public during the pandemic, in contradiction with the US government’s own advice, and the efforts of his Democratic opponent Joe Biden.

Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists, meanwhile, accused the president of “orchestrating division” with his visit to Kenosha on Tuesday.

The president, who defended a white 17-year-old teenager charged with shooting BLM demonstrators, offered some sympathy when he said he felt “terribly for anybody who goes through that,” referring to the police shooting.