Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler on Sunday blamed President Donald Trump for anti-racism protests and riots that have been near-constant in the Oregon city for the past two months.
The video: CNN anchor Jake Tapper asked Wheeler about Trump’s allegation in a tweet hours earlier that local authorities had “lost control of the anarchists and the agitators.”
- Tapper also noted that on Saturday night protesters started a riot and broke into a Portland police union building and set it on fire, according to police.
Wheeler responded that Trump has a “complete misunderstanding of cause and effect.”
- The Democrat said Trump was “sharply escalating the situation” and abusing his power by sending federal law enforcement officers to Portland last week to protect federal property and personnel.
- He called for the feds to leave.
One Portland protester was hospitalized after an impact munition fired by a federal officer struck him in the head on Saturday night in an incident being investigated by the Justice Department’s inspector general.
Democrats outraged: Wheeler’s comments on CNN echoed what he said on Friday during an online press conference, where he further claimed the rioting in his city would have ended without Trump’s intervention.
“Last week, we were seeing the deescalation of the violence. We were seeing things calm down. But the intervention of federal officers reignited tensions,” he said. “I think we would have seen the end of this nightly engagement by now.”
Oregon Governor Kate Brown, a Democrat, had also condemned Trump’s crackdown, and the state had filed a lawsuit against the U.S. agencies involved.
House Democrats on Sunday demanded internal investigations into whether the Justice and Homeland Security Departments “abused emergency authorities” in handling the Portland protests.
Trump determined: The president on Monday praised federal authorities in Portland for “doing a great job.”
“Portland was totally out of control, and they went in, and I guess we have many people right now in jail and we very much quelled it, and if it starts again, we’ll quell it again very easily,” he told reporters at the White House. “It’s not hard to do, if you know what you’re doing.”
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said during an appearance on Fox News on Sunday that Attorney General William Barr and Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf were working on measures the administration can take to counter nationwide unrest and “make sure our communities are safe.”
- The announcement is expected to expand a new Justice Department initiative that sends federal law enforcement into cities facing protests.
Meanwhile, protesters gathered in Portland again on Sunday for a 52nd consecutive night of often-violent protests against police and racism in the city.
- Police said a small fire was lit at the federal courthouse downtown, and a protester reportedly climbed on the roof of the building to tamper with a security camera.
