Portland, Oregon Mayor Ted Wheeler blasted Donald Trump on Sunday after the death of a man who died after a caravan of Trump supporters descended on the city with the intent to incite violence amid Black Lives Matter protests. Trump fired back in a series of tweets.
Said Wheeler: “Do you seriously wonder, Mr. President, why this is the first time in decades that America has seen this level of violence? It’s you who have created the hate and the division. It’s you who have not found a way to say the names of Black people killed by police officers even as people in law enforcement have. And it’s you who claimed that White supremacists are good people. Your campaign of fear is as anti-democratic as anything you’ve done to create hate and vitriol in our beautiful country.”
Trump hit Twitter to attack Wheeler.
Oregon Governor Kate Brown also released a statement: “For the last several years, and escalating in recent months, President Trump has encouraged division and stoked violence. It happened in Charlottesville. It happened in Kenosha. And now, unfortunately, it is happening in Portland, Oregon. But despite the President’s jeers and tweets, this is a matter of life and death. Whether it’s his completely incompetent response to the pandemic, where nearly 200,000 have died, or his outright encouragement of violence in our streets: it should be clear to everyone by now that no one is truly safe with Donald Trump as President.”
Read Brown’s full statement here.
