On Friday, President Donald Trump announced plans to deploy National Guard troops to another city, mentioning Portland, Oregon, as a potential location. When speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump refrained from naming the specific city but indicated that Portland had recently made his shortlist of candidates for troop deployment.
Earlier in the week, Trump had also referenced New Orleans, along with Baltimore and Chicago in previous discussions. Notably, these cities, like Portland, tend to lean Democratic in their voting patterns. Trump cited a television report that highlighted what he described as rampant violence in Portland, prompting his consideration.
He seemed to reference the prolonged protests that erupted in the city following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, which sometimes led to confrontations with law enforcement. Trump characterized Portland as suffering from chaos, claiming that “paid terrorists” were responsible for violent acts, including smokebombing stores, without providing any evidence for these assertions.
In response to a reporter’s inquiry about his decision on the next city for National Guard deployment, Trump confirmed that he had made a choice but was not yet prepared to disclose it.
Previously, Trump defended the deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles as a means to manage protests related to his administration’s immigration policies, while the presence of troops in Washington, D.C., was framed as a response to crime, despite the city experiencing its lowest violent crime rates in 30 years.
