A business in Kenosha, Wisconsin, which had fire damage after uprisings in the city following the police-perpetrated shooting of Jacob Blake in August, was featured by President Trump to the media as he toured damage in the city on Tuesday.
Trump stood alongside John Rode III, whom he introduced as the “owner” of Rode’s Camera Shop, one of the businesses in the building that was affected by fire. Yet, Rode is not the current owner of that business — Tom Gram is.
Gram, who was originally asked by Trump’s people to stand alongside the president during the photo op, had refused to do so. “I think everything he does turns into a circus, and I just didn’t want to be involved in it,” Gram said, explaining why he didn’t want to take part.
It appears that, in the absence of Gram, Trump’s media team decided to have the business’s former owner stand-in for the occasion, falsely describing him as the current head of the company to the reporters present.
“I just appreciate President Trump coming today, everybody here does. We’re so thankful we got the federal troops here,” Rode said after Trump introduced him as the business owner.
Gram was surprised to see Rode appear beside the president, and to be described as the owner of the camera store. Although Rode still owns the building where the business resides, Gram purchased Rode’s Camera Shop eight years ago.
Gram, speaking to a local NBC affiliate station about the matter, was critical of Trump for dividing the community and refusing to speak out against law enforcement in the wake of Blake’s shooting.
“I think he needs to bring this country together rather than divide it,” Gram said. “I think there’s a lot of good people in this community and to say that only law enforcement is correct is not the message we need to hear right now.”
A number of elected leaders had asked Trump not to come to Kenosha this week, as the city was dealing with the Blake shooting as well as the killings of two protesters by a far right 17-year-old vigilante during protests last week.
“I am concerned your presence will only hinder our healing,” Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said to Trump in a letter prior to his travels to the state. “I am concerned your presence will only delay our work to overcome division and move forward together.”
Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian had echoed Evers’s sentiment. “Realistically, from our perspective, our preference would have been for him not to be coming at this point in time,” Antaramian said.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We’re presently working to find 1500 new monthly donors to Truthout before the end of the year.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy