Trump’s Portland Claims Contradict Reality on the Ground

President Donald Trump continues to claim that Portland, Oregon, is “burning down,” despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. During a White House press briefing on Tuesday, Trump told reporters: “I looked at Portland over the weekend. The place is burning down, just burning down.”

The president’s comments came after an appeals court overturned one of two rulings temporarily blocking his attempt to deploy National Guard troops to the city. “You look at a place like Portland, it’s just — it’s ridiculous, when they say that there’s no problem. The place is — it was on fire over the weekend,” Trump added.

However, these assertions bear little resemblance to the actual situation in Portland, a city of 145 square miles and more than 630,000 residents. City spokesperson Cody Bowman confirmed that the Portland Fire Department was never dispatched over the weekend to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility that has been the focal point of recent protests.

In fact, official data shows the fire department responded to just one building fire over the weekend. From Friday to Monday, firefighters addressed approximately nine total fires per day, which Bowman noted was “significantly fewer” than during the same period last year. About half of these were small trash fires, hardly indicative of a city ablaze.

The weekend in question saw tens of thousands of Portlanders peacefully attending an anti-Trump “No Kings” demonstration on Saturday. Photographs from the event show a functioning city with intact infrastructure, directly contradicting the president’s characterization.

There were small, isolated incidents. The Oregonian newspaper reported that federal agents deployed tear gas against protesters near the ICE building, and sparks from canisters did start several small fires. However, these minor blazes were quickly extinguished by rain and lack of fuel. In another incident, a business was damaged by a fire in an RV parked beside it on Friday afternoon, but a single fire engine was sufficient to handle the situation.

This pattern of exaggeration isn’t new. In September and October, Trump repeatedly made similarly unfounded statements about Portland, claiming it has been “burning to the ground” and “on fire for years.” He has also falsely stated that the city “doesn’t even have stores anymore” and that people only use plywood instead of glass for windows, referring to Portland as “war-ravaged.”

When pressed on these characterizations, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt encouraged journalists “to go on the ground and to take a look at for yourself.” CNN correspondent Shimon Prokupecz did exactly that, reporting from Portland the next day to show that the president’s descriptions were disconnected from reality.

“Keep in mind, this is all happening on less than a single block, not even in the city center,” Prokupecz reported, referring to occasional protest clashes near the ICE building. “The rest of Portland is not in chaos. The streetcars are running, guitarists play outside the famed Powell’s bookstore, and there’s a guided tour in Pioneer Courthouse Square. If you weren’t looking for it, you’d never know anything was happening on that one city block outside the ICE building.”

Portland residents, along with local and state officials including the police chief, mayor, and governor, have all attempted to correct the president’s misleading narrative in recent weeks.

The disparity between Trump’s claims and the observed reality raises concerns about the characterization of American cities during a politically charged period, particularly as federal intervention in local matters remains a contentious issue in Portland and beyond.