WASHINGTON, DC – On Sunday, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to stop the deployment of the National Guard to Portland – a move both the Oregon Governor Tina Kotek and AG Rayfield have said is both unnecessary and an unconstitutional abuse of power.

“‘The problem is that the president is using social media to inform his views,’” Rayfield told NOTUS. “‘The president is either purposefully ignoring the reality on the ground in Portland to score political points, or, at best, is recklessly relying upon social media gossip.’”

AG Rayfield then sat down with MSNBC’s Morning Joe to further discuss the lawsuit and call out Trump for his lack of authority in calling the National Guard to the city.

Key highlights from Morning Joe: 

• “We don’t accept this premise or this belief that we should have the United States military in our cities working for public safety. Again, they’re not trained for that purpose. That’s what we have for the police. That’s why we have our Oregon State Police. That’s why we have an incredible district attorney here in Multnomah County that really keeps our public safe.”

• “Using the United States military to come in is un-American and it’s done for a political purpose, but I think it’s not surprising because you have a president that has made a career on forming his political judgments by looking at social media. So it’s a very unusual place to be. He’s exceeded his authority in doing so. And that’s what we filed the lawsuit.”

• “There are some extreme and I mean extreme exceptions where you can do that right […] None of those, absolutely none of those conditions exist in Oregon […] And frankly, he just doesn’t have the authority to do it here in Oregon.”

• “You see the president attacking an independent judiciary. You see the president attacking the free press and now what’s going on California, DC, Memphis, potentially Illinois, and now Oregon. This normalization that you can use the United States military in our cities that is un-American and every place that it happens you will see Democratic attorneys general standing up, drawing a line in the sand, and saying ‘No.’ We need to have this American conversation because it is an un-American action by our President.”

Key highlights from NOTUS: 

• “‘Defendants’ heavy-handed deployment of troops threatens to escalate tensions and stokes new unrest,’ the lawsuit reads. Rayfield also said he hoped to file a restraining order within 24 hours to stop the deployment from happening.”

• “Local officials said Sunday that the White House had not communicated any details about the deployment and that they were still in the dark about when troops would arrive and what they would be doing.”

• “Oregon’s lawsuit argues that a federalization of National Guard troops violates the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which ensures that domestic policing ‘resides with the states, not the federal government.’” 

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