White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has raged against CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins for pressing her on military troops being deployed in American cities.
As legal battles erupted on Monday over Donald Trump’s authority to send National Guard troops to Chicago and Oregon, Leavitt was forced to justify the president’s controversial plans.
The grilling came after a Trump-appointed judge temporarily blocked his push to send troops into Portland after finding there was no violent insurgency to justify it.
“The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts,” wrote U.S. District Judge Karen Immerget, who Trump appointed in 2019.
Asked by Collins about the judgment and whether any Portland officials had wanted federal troops to be deployed in the first place, Leavitt clapped back, firstly at the judge, and then at Collins.
“With all due respect to that judge, I think that her opinion is untethered to reality and the law,” she said.
“The president is using his authority as commander in chief, US code 12404, which clearly says the president has the right to call up the national guard in cases where he deems it appropriate.”
Pressed again on which officials actually wanted troops deployed in Portland, Leavitt accused Collins of only speaking to partisan Democrats.
“I would encourage you as a reporter to go on the ground and take a look for yourself because there’s been many members of the press… some of whom we’ll be invited to the White House soon to hear their stories because they have been in the middle of these riots and they have witnessed the anarchy that is taking place night after night,” she said.
“It’s on video. You should play it on your show.”
The use of the military to quell civil unrest in Democratic cities has become a growing tool for the administration in recent months.
Tensions escalated earlier this year when Trump sent troops to Los Angeles to deal with anti-ICE protests that erupted over his mass deportations strategy.
He also deployed the National Guard to tackle crime in Washington, DC, despite the fact that crime rates in the district had hit their lowest level in 30 years.
Now, the administration has set its sights on Chicago and Portland, to protect ICE officers and federal buildings after weeks of anti-ICE protests.
However, the plan hit a legal snag over the weekend, when U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut said the administration had used false claims of violence against immigration officials to “justify” the deployment.
In her ruling, which the White House is appealing, Immerget said that the use of the military without consent from the state of Oregon had inflamed tensions in the city and caused more protests to erupt.
She also ruled that the administration’s arguments for the deployment “risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power, to the detriment of this nation.”
