Speaking at the White House Thursday evening, President Trump warned Oregon Governor Kate Brown and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler that if they don't clear out the "beehive of terrorists" in the city, he will.
"They put a ring around the courthouse and saved it. The group [additional federal agents] that is there is basically meant to save buildings, very strong, very powerful, but they didn't come out too often of this cocoon that they built in order to save this very expensive, valuable and psychologically important building," Trump said. "The Governor and the Mayor, we've been dealing with them and we think they don't know what they're doing because this should have not been going on for 60 days."
"Our people are staying there to see if they can do it today and tomorrow and if they don't do it, we'll send in the National Guard and we'll take care of it. We're telling you right now these protestors, and many should be arrested because these are professional agitators. These are professional anarchists. These are people who hate our country. We're telling them right now, we're coming in very soon, the National Guard, a lot of people, a lot of very tough people and these aren't people who are there to just guard the courthouse and save it. These are people who are allowed to go forward and do what they have to do," Trump said. "They're working today and probably tomorrow to clean out this beehive of terrorists. If they do it I'm going to be very happy and then slowly we can start to leave the city. If they don't do it, we'll send in the National Guard."
Trump's warning comes one day after the Department of Homeland Security announced a cooperative deal with local law enforcement to protect the federal courthouse, which has been under siege for months.
The Department will continue to maintain our current, augmented federal law enforcement personnel in Portland until we are assured that the Hatfield Federal Courthouse and other federal properties will no longer be attacked and that the seat of justice in Portland will remain secure. This has been our mission and objective since the violent, criminal activity began," Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf announced Wednesday. "The Department will continue to re-evaluate our security posture in Portland, and should circumstances on the ground significantly improve due to the influx of state and local law enforcement, we anticipate the ability to change our force posture, as we do everyday at our other 9,000 federal properties we protect across the country."
