Trump lashes out at former Homeland Security Secretary for condemning his Portland intervention
The city of Portland has been transformed into a warzone. As the protests and riots against systemic racism heated up and received more and more news coverage, Donald Trump saw an opportunity to play the role of a “law and order” president and invaded the city with a heavily armed Department of Homeland Security force, ignoring the will of the inhabitants and local government. The city’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, has aggressively pushed back against the operation.
Proud to cosponsor council resolutions affirming that Portland will not coordinate with federal troops occupying our city, and that journalists will not be targeted.
— Mayor Ted Wheeler (@tedwheeler) July 22, 2020
Trump’s deployment only exacerbated the situation, as videos of federally-backed police brutality spurred protestors to take to the streets in even greater numbers. By pretending that he wanted to fix the situation, the president made things even worse.
Trump’s illiberal use of a federal agency to enforce his personal will prompted former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge to speak out bluntly. He slammed the president’s behavior and denounced his use of Homeland Security as his own “personal militia,” adding that it would be a “cold day in hell” before he would have signed off on such orders. Ridge accurately described Trump’s strategy as a “reality television” approach.
Ex-Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge: "[The Department] was not established to be the president's personal militia.
"It would be a cold day in hell before I would consent to an uninvited, unilateral intervention into one of my cities."https://t.co/ZHg8GrpdJU
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 23, 2020
It was only a matter of time before Trump responded to Ridge’s comments, and predictably he used Twitter to do it. The president slammed the former DHS Secretary as a “failed RINO,” meaning Republican In Name Only. The toothless insult is a favorite in MAGA-land, where anyone who fails to adequately bow and scrape for this disastrous president is labeled a traitor to the party.
Trump decried Ridge’s “sudden love of the Radical Left Mayor of Portland,” a characterization that vastly exaggerates Ridge’s comments and completely misrepresents Mayor Ted Wheeler’s politics. To Trump, anything less than far-right authoritarianism is “radical leftism.” The president also claimed that Wheeler was “shouted out of existence” by demonstrators.
“Love watching pathetic Never Trumpers squirm!” the president ended his tweet, displaying all of the emotional maturity of a schoolyard bully.
Short of literally running the Constitution through a paper shredder, this man could not possibly make it any clearer that he is thoroughly unfit for office. People are being beaten in the streets because of him while he gloats like a psychopath on Twitter. If our nation fails to vote him out in November our country will become unrecognizable.
Recently watched failed RINO Tom Ridge, former head of Homeland Security, trying to justify his sudden love of the Radical Left Mayor of Portland, who last night was booed & shouted out of existence by the agitators & anarchists. Love watching pathetic Never Trumpers squirm!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2020
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