White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday lashed out at a federal judge and then the press in order to deflect from a question about the Trump administration’s effort to deploy the National Guard to Portland, Oregon, over the objections of local officials.
Over the weekend, U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut temporarily blocked the National Guard’s deployment to Portland. While Donald Trump hysterically claims the city is “under siege from attack by Antifa,” the Trump-appointed judge wrote that the president’s assessment that conditions in the city warrant National Guard deployment is “simply untethered to the facts.”
Given Immergut’s ruling, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Leavitt a straightforward question: “Which local officials in Portland have said that the National Guard is needed there?”
Leavitt dodged the question by attacking Immergut’s ruling. “With all due respect to that judge, I think her opinion is untethered in reality and in the law,” the press secretary said. “The president is using his authority as commander-in-chief, U.S. Code [Section] 12406, which clearly states that the president has the right to call up the National Guard in cases where he deems it’s appropriate.”
The statute to which Leavitt referred does not allow the deployment of the National Guard whenever the president “deems it’s appropriate,” but rather to “repel” an “invasion,” “suppress” a “rebellion,” or execute laws that he is unable to “with the regular forces”—criteria that Immergut ruled were not met in Portland (hence her point about the untetheredness of his decision).
Having received no answer from Leavitt, Collins pressed on: “But no local officials that you can point to that have said we need the National Guard?” she asked, citing her recent interview with Portland Police Chief Bob Day, who told her the federal government’s descriptions of conditions in Portland are “not lining up” with reality.
“I would encourage you as a reporter to go on the ground and to take a look for yourself,” Leavitt said, urging Collins to cover the “anarchy” that purportedly grips the city “night after night.”
Collins again mentioned the insights of local officials, to which Leavitt said, “Yeah, but you’re probably talking to partisan Democrat officials who are opposed to everything this president does.”
Portland’s police chief, of course, is a nonpartisan official.
The post Leavitt Can’t Answer One Very Easy Question on Troops in Portland appeared first on New Republic.
