Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan defended her response after a weekend of unrest in her city and claimed that President Donald Trump’s militarized federal response to protests and rioting in Portland had exacerbated the incendiary political climate.

Leading into the past weekend, Durkan, during a MNSBC interview, had called out the acting DHS Secretary, Chad Wolf, for misleading her about the deployment of federal agents to her city to be put on “standby.” Portland has continued to see clashes between heavily armed federal agents and protestors deployed around federal buildings.

Appearing on CNN’s OutFront on Monday, host Erin Burnett pressed the Seattle mayor on the rioting and violence in her city on Saturday and Sunday, in which nearly 60 local police officers were injured.

“Some of these images are ugly. A Starbucks destroyed in the protest, construction site for juvenile detention facility set on fire and officers were burned when protesters threw explosive devices at them,” Burnett noted. “A lot of what is happening here is not peaceful. This is just violent and destructive and the president says he thinks mayors like you are refusing his help and those stand by forces because he’s the one offering it. Does he have a point?”

“No, again, the president’s actions clearly have escalated things in Seattle and across the country,” Durkan claimed, before downplaying the examples of vandalism and attacks on law enforcement. “I was just talking to a number of mayors throughout the country who saw a similar thing that people wanting to act out against the president and his administration coming to the streets. I believe if you look at what happened yesterday and Sunday again it was peaceful. We had a number of peaceful protests and what we’ve seen is every time this president promises to sew division he’s successful.”

“He’s clearly targeted cities ran by Democratic mayors… he’s using law enforcement as a political tool,” Durkan added. “I hate to see it, Erin, but I really believe we’re seeing the dry run for martial law. This is a president that’s using law enforcement and federal forces for political purposes and that should be chilling to every American.”

Burnett then pushed back on Durkan on how she plans to de-escalate tensions in her own city.

“We will continue to do, I think, the number one thing we can do to bring peace to the streets in Seattle and across America is bring more justice to the systems and after the murder of George Floyd,” Durkan said, “millions of people turned out across this country demanding that we do better, that we dismantle systems of racial inequality and systemic racism and improve policing and provide more community health and education and everything in a community. That’s what we’re focused on here.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

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