Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said President Donald Trump intentionally chose to send National Guard troops to Portland because of its strong Democratic politics.
In an interview with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns for “The Conversation,” the Democrat said the administration wanted to “draw extremes” and “polarize the situation.”
“We’re not going to sit there and tell you any city or state is perfect,” said Rayfield. “We got things to work on just like every place else does, but it is nowhere near the rhetoric that you hear: ‘You’re burning down to the ground, we’re on fire.’”
Rayfield added that these claims “just aren’t true.”
Last weekend, Trump announced that U.S. troops were heading to “War ravaged Portland” to protect “ICE facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.” The troops, he added were permitted to use “Full Force, if necessary.”
Both the state of Oregon and city of Portland sued the Trump administration ahead of the National Guard’s deployment, calling the move an “unconstitutional abuse of power.” Rayfield called the move “un-American.”
“I would invite anybody to come to Oregon and I think it’s pretty clear that there isn’t an invasion going on in Oregon,” Rayfield told Burns. “There isn’t a rebellion at all going on in Oregon.”
The full interview with Rayfield is available on Sunday’s episode of “The Conversation.”
