Donald Trump and his MAGA cronies are itching to send the troops into Portland. For weeks, Trump has been painting the city as a nightmarish cross between Mad Max and the first ten minutes of Terminator 2, painting it as a hellish warzone on par with the European front of World War II.
The MAGAsphere has picked up this ball and run with it, bleating and hollering that conditions on the ground are so bad that the president’s hand is being forced – it would practically be a dereliction of duty for Trump not to send in his goon squad!
Pete Hegseth even floated deploying the 82nd Airborne Division into the city, an army unit specializing in combat operations, which would effectively be treating an American city like Baghdad or Kabul.
Unfortunately for Trump, reality and facts tell a different story. Portland is in fact not an apocalyptic war zone that’s burning to the ground and does not require the intervention of the National Guard or U.S. Army. Now U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut – a Trump appointee – has stepped in to block the president’s unhinged attack.
MAJOR BREAKING: In a late-night order, Judge Immergut, a Trump-appointee, has BLOCKED Trump from deploying the National Guard from ANY state or D.C. into Oregon. pic.twitter.com/wTDH4lqVw2
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) October 6, 2025
On Oct. 4, she calmly ruled that Portland isn’t descending into anarchy and thus does not require the presence of National Guard troops, describing Trump’s reasoning as “untethered to facts”. Pete Hegseth attempted to overrule this, only for Immergut to block him in an emergency hearing yesterday. As she correctly summarized:
“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs. … This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”
Buyer’s remorse
Trump promptly went ballistic, telling journalists:
“I wasn’t served well by the people who pick judges. I appointed the judge, and it goes like that. If he made that decision, Portland is burning to the ground… all you have to do is look at the TV and read your newspapers. That judge ought to be ashamed of himself.” (Trump apparently didn’t realize Immergut is a woman)
The current administration has approached judicial rulings against them as more of a speedbump than a roadblock, so multiple challenges to Immergut’s ruling on various grounds. Even so, it proves that there are limits to Trump’s eagerness to bend reality to his will.
He can yell that Portland is in “lawless mayhem”, its citizens are cowering behind locked doors, gangs of raiders are prowling the smashed streets as their cops retreat in fear as loudly as he wants – but however loudly and frequently he yells that doesn’t make it so. So, for now, a victory for the forces of observed reality.
That said, Democratic officials are convinced that Trump is already sending in secretive agents to foment chaos and anarchy on their streets to justify sending in the National Guard. So if Portland isn’t in flames today, Trump may ensure it will be tomorrow.
