President Donald Trump is claiming the sheriff in Portland, Oregon, is endorsing him, but Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese says otherwise.
Reese responded late Tuesday after the first presidential debate to Trump, as he wrote on Twitter, “As the Multnomah County Sheriff I have never supported Donald Trump and will never support him.”
“Donald Trump has made my job a hell of a lot harder since he started talking about Portland, but I never thought he’d try to turn my wife against me!” he added.
Donald Trump has made my job a hell of a lot harder since he started talking about Portland, but I never thought he'd try to turn my wife against me! #PortlandSheriff #Debates2020 #DebateNight
— Mike Reese (@SheriffReese) September 30, 2020
Trump appeared to reference Reese when he said during the debate, “I have Florida. I have Texas. I have Ohio. I have, excuse me, Portland — the sheriff just came out today, and he said, ‘I support President Trump.'”
“I don’t think you have any law enforcement,” Trump fired at Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. “You can’t even say the word law enforcement because if you say those words you’re going to lose all of your radical left supporters.”
As The New York Times pointed out, Trump could have been referring to when a Portland police officer said about how the protests in the city can end, “If people liked our Trump government a lot more, we probably wouldn’t have this issue in the first place.”
See Trump’s comments below:
Fox News’ Chris Wallace, the moderator for Tuesday night’s debate, asked Biden, “Have you ever called the Democratic mayor of Portland or the Democratic governor of Oregon and said, ‘Hey, you gotta stop this, bring in the National Guard, do whatever it takes,’ to stop the days and months of violence in Portland?”
Biden responded, “I don’t hold public office now,” adding, “I am a former vice president. I’ve made it clear, I’ve made it clear in my public statements, that violence should be prosecuted.”
However, Wallace pushed, “But you’ve never called for the leaders in Portland and in Oregon to bring in the National Guard and knock off 100 days of riots?”
“They can in fact take care of it if he’d just stay out of the way,” Biden said.
