President Donald Trump mocked Oregon Governor Tina Kotek as “living in a ‘Dream World’” amid escalating tensions after he ordered National Guard troops to Portland to stop so-called “Antifa-led hellfire.”
Trump demanded that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth deploy National Guard troops to Portland over the weekend, decrying the city as “war-ravaged” on Truth Social and claiming Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities are “under siege from attack by Antifa and other domestic terrorists.”
The directive immediately caused tension with the Democratic governor, who said she told Trump Saturday that there was “no need for military troops” and “no threat to national security in the city.”
While Kotek insisted the city didn’t need help, Trump seemed to chalk up her response to delusion, writing on his Truth Social Wednesday: “The Governor of Oregon must be living in a ‘Dream World.’”
“Portland is a NEVER-ENDING DISASTER. Many people have been badly hurt, and even killed. It is run like a Third World Country,” Trump also claimed, without evidence.
“We’re only going in because, as American Patriots, WE HAVE NO CHOICE. LAW AND ORDER MUST PREVAIL IN OUR CITIES, AND EVERYWHERE ELSE!” he concluded.
Despite Kotek’s objections, Sec. Hegseth federalized Oregon National Guard troops Sunday, and 200 members are expected to be deployed to the city as soon as Thursday, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.
The guardsmen deployment, which will cost taxpayers an estimated $3.8 million according to OPB, is the White House’s latest attempt to “stop Antifa-led hellfire in its tracks,” officials said.
Meanwhile, Oregon and its largest city have filed a lawsuit to block Trump from deploying troops, claiming the president’s “provocative and arbitrary actions threaten to undermine public safety by inciting a public outcry.”
While the Trump administration appears focused on protests outside an ICE facility, the crowd has diminished in recent weeks – and there haven’t been arrests since June, according to the lawsuit.
Data published Saturday by The Oregonian appeared to confirm that the number of arrests and overall protesters had significantly decreased since June, the height of nationwide protests against Trump’s immigration policies.
Despite this, the troops coming to Portland will soon be tasked with protecting “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other U.S. Government personnel who are performing Federal functions,” the White House said.
They’re also ordered to protect federal property “at locations where protests against these functions are occurring or are likely to occur.”
Portland is just the latest Democratic-led city to be targeted by Trump as he tests the limits of his executive power.
Trump first deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quell anti-ICE protesters in June, before sending them to Washington, D.C. to crack down on crime he claims is rampant in the city.
Earlier this month, the president said he was sending troops to Memphis to combat crime. Those troops arrived at the Memphis Safe Task Force staging area Wednesday, WSMV reported. It is unclear how many troops were sent to Memphis.
California sued the administration in the wake of Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines into Los Angeles. A federal judge earlier this month determined that the administration illegally deployed military assets into the Los Angeles area.
Trump, apparently trying to create “a national police force with the president as its chief,” deployed troops to California “ostensibly to quell a rebellion and ensure that federal immigration law was enforced,” according to the ruling from California District Judge Charles Breyer.
But “there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law,” he added.
The president instead illegally and “systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles.”
In the Oregon lawsuit, state leaders also say Trump is breaking the law as well as Tenth Amendment protections ensuring that police authority rests with the states, not the federal government.
The Trump administration’s “stated basis for federalizing members of Oregon’s National Guard is patently pretextual and baseless,” state leaders wrote in the suit.
Trump singled out a “particular disfavored jurisdiction for political retribution” and seeks to “eviscerate the constitutional principle that the states’ sovereignty should be treated equally,” they argued.
In addition to the lawsuit, the Oregon Department of Justice filed a temporary restraining order asking a federal judge to block the deployment, OPB reported.
A hearing on that order has been set for Friday.
There have long been protests against ICE and other federal facilities in Portland, including during Trump’s first term, when nationwide racial justice protests against police violence escalated into days-long clashes with authorities.
