Trump says Portland is ‘burning to the ground.’ It’s not.
President Donald Trump, who is seeking to send the National Guard to Portland, Oregon, said the city is in flames.
“Portland is burning to the ground, it’s insurrectionists all over the place,” Trump told reporters Oct. 5 before heading to a celebration of the U.S. Navy, echoing his previous statements. “It’s antifa …Portland is burning to the ground.”
“All you have to do is look at the television, turn on your television, read your newspapers,” Trump said.
Trump’s descriptions of the city as inflamed or war ravaged amid Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests prompted a tide of social media sarcasm about Portlanders wearing chicken costumes, waving their hands in unison to outdoor music or revolting against a fictional flannel shortage.
U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut, a 2019 Trump nominee, on Oct. 4 temporarily blocked the administration from deploying the Oregon National Guard. The Trump administration then sought to deploy the California National Guard, and the judge Oct. 5 blocked the administration from deploying federalized members of the guard. The Trump administration is appealing, saying it wants to deploy the guard to protect federal ICE officers and a facility at the center of protests.
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