A protester speaks with Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler.
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“ ‘Do you wonder why America, in the first time in decades, has seen this level of violence? It’s you who have created this level of hate and division. It is 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 white supremacists are good people. Your campaign of fear is as anti-democratic as anything that you’ve done to create hate and vitriol in our beautiful country. You’ve tried to divide us more than any other figure in modern history. And now you want me to stop the violence that you helped create.’ ”
That’s Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler unloading on President Donald Trump during a press conference Sunday after a man reported to be a member of a far-right group was shot and killed the night before as a caravan of Trump’s supporters clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters.
“What America needs is for you to be stopped so we can come back together as one America while recognizing that we must to demand that all people, every color from every political persuasion, pull together and hold accountable in stopping racism and violence,” Wheeler continued.
Here’s his press conference:
Meanwhile, Trump on Sunday fired several tweets in Wheeler’s direction.
Portland has now been the site of nightly protests for more than three months since the police killing of George Floyd. Many of them end in vandalism and violence, and hundreds of demonstrators have been arrested by local and federal law enforcement since late May.
Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat who, like Wheeler, has also feuded with Trump, said the president has “encouraged division and stoked violence” in American cities — now including Portland.
