Trump Threatens to Send Troops to City He Says He Saw Being Destroyed ‘Last Night’— But it Wasn’t
President Donald Trump said he has earmarked Portland, Oregon as the next city for National Guard deployment after watching video of its “destruction” on television. Except the video the president apparently saw was not from “last night” as he claimed, but from the George Floyd protests of 2020.
During an executive order signing at the Oval Office on Friday, at which Trump renamed the Department of Defense as the “Department of War,” a reporter asked if the president had decided which city he wanted to “go into next.” Trump previously deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C. as part of a crime crackdown effort.
“Yeah, I have,” Trump answered. “I have. I’m not going to say it now, but, yeah, I have. We’re going to go into another place and straighten it out.”
Trump then went on to identify Portland, Oregon as the city the had in mind.
I will say this: I watched today, I didn’t know that was continuing to go on, but Portland, is unbelievable what’s going on in Portland. The destruction of the city. Well, I’m going to look at it now because I didn’t know that was still going on. This has been going on for years. So, we’ll be able to stop that very easily. But, you know, that was not on my list, Portland.
But when I watched television last night, this has been going on, you wouldn’t be standing — if you were the mayor, you wouldn’t be — can you imagine what they’re doing? They’re walking in throwing smoke bombs into stores. These are paid terrorists, Okay? These are paid agitators. These are — I watched that last night. I’m very good at this stuff. These are paid agitators. They get paid money by radical left groups. Not radical right groups — radical left groups. And they get paid a lot of money…
When we go there, if we go to Portland, we’re going to wipe ’em out. They’re gonna be gone, and they’re gonna be gone fast. They won’t even stand the fight. They will not stay there. They’ve ruined that city. I have people who used to live in Portland, they’ve left. Most of them left. But what they’ve done to that place, it’s like living in hell.
The Guardian reported on Saturday that although the president didn’t cite the specific news report he watched, “Fox News broadcast a report on Thursday that mixed images of a recent protest in Portland, attended by dozens of protesters, with a viral video clip from 2020 of one protester, Christopher David, being pepper-sprayed in the face by a federal agent that was wrongly described as having been shot in June of this year.”
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