President Donald Trump threatened on Monday to send federal law enforcement officials to cities like New York and Chicago after his deployment of such forces in Portland, Oregon, over the weekend to crack down on protesters.
“New York and Chicago and Philadelphia, Detroit and Baltimore and all of this, Oakland is a mess, we are not going to allow this to happen in the country, all run by liberal Democrats,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office. “We will have more federal law enforcement officers, I can tell you that.”
Defying state and local governments, Trump over the weekend stepped up operations against protesters in Oregon, with Customs and Border Patrol agents snatching protesters from the streets and putting them in unmarked trucks to stop them. The state attorney general filed a lawsuit against the feds, accusing them of illegally arresting protesters. The ACLU has also sued federal agents and local law enforcement agencies, calling the situation a “constitutional crisis.”
However, Trump applauded the federals’ invasion of Portland on Monday while threatening to do the same in other cities: “They’ve done a fantastic job, they’ve been there three days, and they’ve done a fantastic job in a very short period of time.” . , No problem. Many people in prison, these are anarchists. These are not protesters. These are people who hate our country. We are not going to let it go on. ”
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