Consider This from NPR - Federal Officers Could Expand Beyond Portland; Trump Searches For Campaign Strategy

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

In Portland, Oregon, federal agents have been using violent force against protesters. Some protesters have been arrested by officers in unmarked vehicles. Governor Kate Brown has asked the Department of Homeland Security to step aside, while President Trump threatened to dispatch federal officers to more cities.NPR's Mara Liasson reports Trump was hoping to campaign on a thriving economy and a swift end to the pandemic. Surging cases have forced him to change his message — and given Joe Biden an opening. Ongoing coverage of the Portland protests and police response from our colleagues at Oregon Public Broadcasting.Find and support your local public radio station.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Jerome Adams, the Surgeon General, is literally begging people, wear a mask. I'm pleading with your viewers, I'm begging you. That's viewers of Fox News. Please understand that we are not trying to take away your freedoms when we say wear a face covering. Adams cited a New York Times report that showed a pretty high rate of mask wearing in the U.S. Around 80% of people in a couple recent surveys say they do it all or most of the time. So a lot of people are doing the right thing. But that varies dramatically depending on where you are.

Will you consider a national mandate that people need to wear masks? No, I want people to have a certain freedom, and I don't believe in that, no. The president, in an interview on Fox News Sunday, talked about masks basically the same way he has for months, as an issue of freedom and personal choice. And as you know, masks cause problems, too. With that being said, I'm a believer in masks. I think masks are good, but I leave it up to the governors. Masks might be up to the states, but the president has a different idea when it comes to policing. This is Consider This

from NPR. I'm Kelly McEvers. It's Monday, July 20th. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Integrative Therapeutics, creator of Physician's Elemental Diet, a medical food developed by clinicians for the dietary management of IBS, IBD, and SIBO under the supervision of a physician. One minute, Mark Pettibone was walking down the street. It was about 2.30 in the morning after a protest in Portland, Oregon. And the next minute... A van pulls up right in front of us, and I am basically tossed into the van. And I had my beanie pulled over my face so I couldn't see.

And they held my hands over my head. And then, he says, federal officers drove him to a building and took him inside, but didn't tell him why he was being detained. They patted me down and took my picture and rummaged through my belongings. One of them said, this is a whole lot of nothing. You know, he seemed disappointed that I didn't have any weapons or anything on me. Pettibone, who told his story to our colleagues at Oregon Public Broadcasting, says he was put in a cell by himself, read his Miranda rights. Officers asked if he wanted to waive those rights. He said no and asked for a lawyer.

Then, about an hour and a half later, he was released. It was, you know, clear to me that this was just a totally indiscriminate detainment. So here's what seems to be happening. Ever since George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis in May, people have been protesting in Portland every single night. Then, earlier this month, federal agents, often in camouflage tactical gear, started showing up. Federal officials said they were there to protect the federal courthouse in downtown Portland.

But they've been seen blocks away from the courthouse, detaining protesters. Are federal agents using unmarked vehicles to pick up protesters in U.S. cities? Well, in Portland they have. I wouldn't say this is used anywhere else. That's Ken Cuccinelli, the acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security, telling my colleague Sarah McCammon last week on NPR that, yeah, federal officers in Portland are doing this. They're from different divisions of the Department of Homeland Security

and from Customs and Border Protection. And Cuccinelli said they plan to show up in other places, too. You know, this is a posture we intend to continue, not just in Portland, but in any of the facilities that we're responsible for around the country. Federal agents in Portland have used tear gas and more. There are pictures of them hiding behind small hatches cut in the plywood that was used to board up the courthouse. The holes were used as blinds to fire these things called pepper balls at protesters, basically a ball full of pepper spray. One recent video shows a protester standing on the side of a street, not threatening police, being shot in the head with a kind of rubber bullet. He was hospitalized with face and skull

fractures. Over the weekend, a federal officer was filmed beating a man, a Navy veteran, with a baton, while a second federal officer pepper-sprayed him in the face. And if the governor's not going to do something about it, we'll do something about it. President Trump today said he's happy with the federal response in Portland. And he threatened to send more federal officers to Chicago, New York, and other cities where there have been protests.

All run by liberal Democrats. More federal law enforcement to some of these cities. More federal law enforcement, that I can tell you. In Portland, they've done a fantastic job. They've been there three days, and they really have done a fantastic job. But here's the problem. Local leaders say these federal officers are making things worse, not better. It was dissipating. It was

calming down. We believed a week ago it would be over by this weekend. Ted Wheeler, the mayor of Portland, told NPR over the weekend that things in the city now are more tense than they were a few weeks ago. This is an effort, a last gasp effort by a failed president with sagging polling data who's trying to look strong for his base. And so he is actually using the federal police function in support of his candidacy. Now the state of Oregon says it will sue the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other federal law enforcement agencies. It is a blatant abuse of power by the federal government. Governor Kate Brown told NPR she's asked the Department of Homeland Security to remove federal officers. They are inappropriately trained, and frankly, they're exacerbating an already challenging situation.

Reporters at Oregon Public Broadcasting have been on top of this story since the beginning. There's a link to their work in our episode notes. So the president's message on policing is clear. If the governors won't do something, the White House will. His message on the pandemic, of course, has been the exact opposite. Governors in states the president has said along, should be in charge of testing, getting enough PPE, and reopening plans for businesses and schools. The White House Coronavirus Task Force hasn't held a briefing at the White House in months.

Well, we had very successful briefings. I was doing them, and we had a lot of people watching, record numbers watching. Today, the president announced the task force will restart regular briefings. We have had this big flare-up in Florida, Texas, a couple of other places. The president said he wants to keep people updated on new treatments and progress on a vaccine. He's hoping for good news to share on those fronts, just as it is becoming clear that his re-election campaign will not have the

message he once hoped for. NPR's Mara Liason talked about that with my colleague and PR host Lulu Garcia Navarro. The president originally wanted to run on a kind of triumphant story about the great economy. Then he wanted to run on a COVID going away story or an economy bouncing back story. Right now, both of those are very hard, if not impossible, for him to do. And this was the week that the polls really got worse for the president. Remember, polls are a snapshot, not a prediction. But two polls showed him with Joe Biden with a double-digit lead over President Trump, and the NBC Wall Street Journal poll showed that people think the country is on the wrong track by 72%. That's very high. And it's never a good sign for an incumbent.

Let's talk about the Democratic nominee, Vice President Joe Biden. He has been rolling out his policies. President Trump took a shot at Vice President Biden's police reforms that he has proposed with Fox News' Chris Wallace refuting his claims. Let's listen. And Biden wants to defund the police. Sir, he does not. Look, he signed a charter with Bernie Sanders. It says nothing about defunding the police. Oh, really? It says abolish. It says defund. Let's go.

All right. Give me the charter, please. All right. Well, Biden's charter indeed does not say anything about defunding the police. So what does it say? Joe Biden has been very clear that he opposes the defund the police movement. But he has said that some funding for police departments should be redirected to other services like counseling, mental health care. He has also said that police forces are too heavily armed with militarized equipment. He's talked about, he says, the last thing you need is an up-armored Humvee coming into your neighborhood. So that's where he is. He has not been in favor of defunding the police or abolishing the police.

He's rolled out a number of other policy agendas as well. What can you tell us about those? Are they just an indictment of President Trump's policies? Or does he lay out his own vision for the future? Now, Joe Biden is trying to go beyond a heavily anti-Trump measure and lay out his own vision for the future. He has talked about much more government investment in the economy, in low-income housing, in low-income schools, free community college. He has not endorsed the Green New Deal, but he has come out with a pretty ambitious environmental agenda. He wants to cut U.S. carbon emissions by 2050. He wants to spend $500 million

on solar panels. On health care, he has still stuck to the middle ground in the Democratic debate. He doesn't want mandatory Medicare for all, but he does want to add a public option to Obamacare. And he has tried to stick to the middle ground on things like fracking. He doesn't want an outright ban, but no new permits on federal lands. Finally, Mara, we only have a few seconds left. The president was silent for a long time on the death of Congressman John Lewis. It was at least half a day before he tweeted very brief condolences. Yes, the president tweeted this quote,

saddened to hear the news of civil rights hero John Lewis passing. Melania and I send our prayers to he and his family. That's the way he wrote it. He also ordered American flags to be flown at half-staff for the remainder of the day. And, of course, the president and John Lewis had a difficult relationship. Lewis did not attend Trump's inauguration. And Trump once said that Lewis was all talk and no action. NPR's Mara Liason talking to Lulu Garcia Navarro.

When he was 25 years old, by the way, John Lewis famously marched across a bridge called the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. It was during a protest for voting rights and he was beaten by state troopers. That bridge is named for a U.S. Senator and Confederate General, Edmund Pettus, who was also a member of the Alabama KKK. Now, almost a half a million people have signed an online petition to rename that bridge after John Lewis.

Additional reporting in this episode from our colleagues at All Things Considered and Weekend Edition Sunday, and from Jonathan Levinson at Oregon Public Broadcasting. For more news, download the NPR One app or tune into your local public radio station. Supporting that station makes this podcast possible. I'm Kelly McEvers. We will be back with more tomorrow. local public radio station. Supporting that station makes this podcast possible. I'm Kelly McEvers. We will be back with more tomorrow. Don't miss the national conversation with me, Jen White, every weekday on NPR's 1A. News, views, and insight for the relentlessly curious. A space for those willing to share what they know and ready to hear the other side of the story. Subscribe to 1A now and leave a review.