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DHS secretary: Portland has finally stepped up to the challenge of policing their city

2020-07-31 | 🔗
Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf tells 'Fox & Friends' that Portland saw little criminal activity overnight after Oregon state and Portland police stepped in.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pete Brian Ainsley Ainsley all right. Thank you. Griff lets talk about Portland because some of the state troopers there locally are moving in because the president has said. If you all arent going to guard the courthouse there and federal buildings there, then we are going to send in our troops our federal troops to come in and guard that now he is saying the National Guard will come in if these state troopers cant do the job, and then he also said officials will clear out of the behive of terrorists. Listen to the president. These protesters and many should be arrested, because these are professional agitators. These are professional anarchists. These are people that hate our country were telling them. We are coming in soon the National Guard. These are people that not just have to guard the courthouse and save it. These are people that are allowed to go forward and do what they have to do. I think that makes the governors job and the mayors job a lot easier. They are working today and
probably tomorrow, to clean out this behive of terrorists and slowly we can start to leave the city if they dont do it, we will be sending in the national guard. Ainsley lets bring in acting DHS Secretary Chad, Wolf to find out the latest in Portland good Morning to you good morning, Ainsley good morning. How did it work last night? It worked fairly. Well, what we saw is we saw a robust contingent of Oregon state police come into the area yesterday afternoon, together with Portland Police Bureau, they cleaned out the parks across the street from the courthouse and what we saw overnight is almost little to no criminal activity, and that really is how it should be. It reinforces the principle if you work with federal state and local law enforcement work together, we can protect our communities, we can secure our communities, we can secure federal properties and protect law enforcement officers. This is what we have been asking for, or over sixty days and im. Glad Oregon and Portland has finally accepted up to the challenge. Brian, you the way I understand
it. There were one hundred state troopers there guarding and you guys were standing by should something go wrong. All you asked TED Wheeler to do is use his state police to guard federal buildings. Whenhe wouldnt had you no choi. The mayor makes you the bad guy, and now you sit there now. Finally, the governor saw that you werent backing down and did what you asked him to do all along. Does that feel good to a degree? Well, Brian, it certainly reinforce what is we have been saying all along. We are going to continue to courthouse thats our job and responsibility. We are not backing away from that. What we have been asking, Portland and Oregon to do to police city streets, police city parks, do their jobs and arrest, individuals that are committing criminal acts and, finally, after over sixty days, they have decided to step up and do their job. Unfortunately, within those sixty days, we have had over two hundred and forty DHS law enforcement officers injured because of the criminal and violent activity every night
PETE. Mr Secretary, over those sixty days, have you seen a lot of violence which is required? Use of force people protecting federal property, the mayor there Mayor TED Wheeler: is he not staring down those people and locking them up instead? Is he apologizing I apologize to those nonviolent demonstrators who were subjected to the use of CS gas or orad. It should never have happened. I take personal responsibility for it and im sorry. I also want to draw a clear distinction between the Portland Police Use, the CS gas and what we are seeing. The federal officers use. The federal officers are using CS gas broadly indiscriminately and nightly, and that is why it is escalating the behavior we are seeing on the streets rather than descalating it PETE. So are the rules of engagement for federal officers
there to use gas broadly on peaceful protesters? Absolutely not what the mayor quoted just now is completely inaccurate. I believe he knows it to be inaccurate, but again is he putting politics over public safety? What we know is there are nonviolent peaceful protests that the occur in Portland that occur around that courthouse every day and there are no issues: the violent criminal activity that the mayor is again not telling you the truth about, occurs between midnight and 500 a dot m every morning, and it is violent, violent criminals and other opportunists, violent opportunists that are attacking that courthouse and thats. What we are concerned about there are no peaceful protesting going on at 330 and 400 a dot m in the morning at that courthouse that occurs earlier in the day, and there are no issues. So the mayor is intentionally confusing issues and again playing politics over public safety Ainsley. If you just think about common sense here, look peaceful protest: you
dont, need tear gas right. We all agree. You can peaceably protest when it gets violent and see all these videos of tons of people going toward like ten or fifteen officers that are trying to guard a monument or a courthouse, and I am worried about their safety and when you have individuals throwing rocks and bottles at them. The police officers in Portland found recently a sledge hammer, gas cans, and so these officers were asking them to go out there and then what are they supposed to do when these crowds start coming for them? Tear gas is not going to kill you its going to keep the violent people away from hurting our police officers. What do you make of the increase of violence of violence? Take a very defensive posture in doing that, engage the violent individuals to push them back away from the fence line that we have established there. What we have been saying all along these
individuals shouldnt be able to congregate in city parks and city streets to do this violent activity. We have been asking for sixty days for Portland Police to do their job, for whatever reason it took sixty days, it took my law enforcement, two hundred and forty five injuries over ninety arrests for them to step up and to do their job im glad they are here, im glad theyre partnering with us. We can hopefully bring this to a peaceful conclusion very quickly, Brian demonstrating outside of your house and doing it outside the police commissioners house around the Nypd commissioners house. This is the new trend go to their house. Even the liberal mayors are getting protested. There vow got to worry about your own security in the big picture. Do the federal troops? Excuse me, agents move out of Portland and, if so, what date, and are you going to leave Seattle as well as we head to a weekend where they tell you you cant, use legally, the City Council said you are not supposed to use a
fence there in Portland, we are remaining in Portland. All of our DHS officers that have been there over the past sixty day also remain there in Portland. Until we are assured that the plan that has been put in place by the Governor and Oregon state police will be effective night after night after night yesterday or last night was the first night that they have been deployed. What we know are the weekends are more violent, so we are going to remain there until we are assured that that courthouse is safe and secure. Other cities like Seattle, that you mentioned and others we have as we get intelligence and threat information that federal properties are targeted. We send in stand by teams of law enforcement personnel and when that threat passes, we remove those teams, so its very much like we do every other day of the year with law enforcement arranged the country PETE. Mr Secretary real quick exit question: what is the threshold by which the National Guard would be deployed? We have heard the president talk about that in Portland sure. Well, I think again we have got to see if the Oregon state police put together an effective plan if they dont and the criminal activity continues there at the
courthouse and the Oregon state police are overrun. Then thats certainly an option that the President has continued to talk about its certainly an option that we will look at, but we are looking forward to Oregon State police and others. There Portland police, that are now involved in this issue. We hope that they will do their job.
Transcript generated on 2020-08-01.