Trump says he will ‘go in & take care of matters’ in Portland if mayor fails to reclaim city from ‘anarchists and looters’
US President Donald Trump has hinted that he could invoke a law allowing federal troops to be deployed against local authorities' wishes after Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler demanded he “stays away” from the violence-plagued city.
“If the incompetent Mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler, doesn’t get control of his city and stop the Anarchists, Agitators, Rioters and Looters, causing great danger to innocent people, we will go in and take care of matters the way they should have been taken care of 100 days ago!” Trump tweeted on Friday.
If the incompetent Mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler, doesn’t get control of his city and stop the Anarchists, Agitators, Rioters and Looters, causing great danger to innocent people, we will go in and take care of matters the way they should have been taken care of 100 days ago!
The US president’s broadside at Wheeler comes hours after the Democratic mayor penned a scathing open letter to Trump, refusing any federal assistance in quelling the unrest that has beset Portland for over three months while accusing Trump of stirring “division” with his “demagoguery.”
Wheeler argued that Oregon state troopers sent to the city to protect a federal courthouse, which was for weeks besieged by protesters, had only made “the situation far worse” then it was before.While the troopers withdrew from the city earlier this month after their commitment ended – and amid growing frustrations over the local district attorney's refusal to prosecute many of those arrested during the unrest – the violence has hardly subsided.
Last Sunday, Black Lives Matter activists attempted to torch a police station while they were heard chanting “Burn baby, burn!” at the outer wall of the precinct in video footage that circulated online.
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