President Donald Trump for the third time threatened federal intervention in Portland, saying inaccurately that the city is in “anarchy.”
The president appeared to be referring to the ongoing protests outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in South Portland. Those protests peaked in June, with flare-ups off-and-on since then, but have involved no more than several dozen people in recent weeks.
“We’re going to do a pretty big number on those people in Portland that are doing that,” Trump said. “They’re professional agitators and anarchists.”
The president and his aides were answering reporters’ questions Thursday when Vice President JD Vance said that paid and organized “men in black ski masks” were “committing acts of political terrorism” in Oregon.
Trump followed up on Vance’s statements to say that protesters have “burned the place down,” referring to Portland, adding that most shop owners have left and that those who remain have boarded up their windows with plywood.
The protesters, Trump claimed for the third time this month without offering any evidence, were “paid.”
“These are bad people, and they’re paid a lot of money by rich people, some of whom we know,” Trump said.
A protester who said she has been outside the ICE facility regularly for the last two months said neither she nor anybody she knows there has been paid to protest. The group of demonstrators regularly gets donations after posting about their needs for food or medical supplies on social media.
“Comments like that are just blatant lies,” said Deidra Watts, 30. “It’s an attempt to discredit us.”
Watts said she works part-time at a machine-shop doing general fabricating and does odd jobs. She has never accepted or been offered money to protest, Watts said.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson’s office declined to comment on Trump’s latest comments but has previously rejected similar comments from the president.
“Like other mayors across the country, I have not asked for — and do not need — federal intervention," Wilson said in a statement earlier this month when Trump first mused about sending troops to Portland.
The mayor has also decried federal police officers’ use of force against protesters captured in video and published by The Oregonian/OregonLive. And a Portland Police Bureau assistant chief has said in sworn testimony that federal officers were “instigating” the clashes with protesters.
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