President Trump is weighing sending the National Guard to Portland after TV reports of unrest tied to ICE protests.
The city joins others he has flagged, including Baltimore, Chicago, and New Orleans, as potential targets for federal intervention. In Portland, Labor Day anti-ICE protests turned violent with flag burnings and a guillotine displayed outside the agency’s office. Trump called the demonstrators “paid terrorists and agitators.”
“They get paid money by radical left groups, not radical right groups, radical left groups, and they get paid a lot of money,” he said.
If the National Guard deploys to Portland, he said, they will “wipe them out.”
“They won’t even stand the fight. They will not stay there. They’ve ruined that city,” Trump said, adding that in Portland, “it’s like living in hell.”
Trump has sent National Guard troops to Los Angeles and D.C. for deportation efforts despite pushback from Democratic leaders. He said New Orleans may be next at Gov. Jeff Landry’s request, adding Friday that he’s chosen the next city but won’t reveal it yet.
“So we’re making a determination now, do we go to Chicago or do we go to a place like New Orleans where we have a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants us to come in and straighten out a very nice section of this country that’s become quite tough, quite bad,” Trump said Wednesday.
