“More Americans are waking up” to the dangers of “today’s radical left,” House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told “Outnumbered Overtime” on Tuesday reacting to the violence in Portland, Ore. and other cities across the country.
Jordan went on to say that more Americans are “realizing, “Wow, I didn’t realize how radical today’s Democrats are.’ This is why it has to stop.”
He added that that is why the 2020 election “is so darn important.”
Jordan made the comments the day after Portland moms and dads marched in droves, joining downtown protesters on the 54th night of demonstrations that later swelled overnight amid escalating tensions with federal law enforcement agents in the city, according to multiple reports.
Portland has experienced weeks of unrest following the May 25 death of George Floyd and the city’s mayor has repeatedly called on President Trump to remove federal agents sent there to disperse crowds and protect federal property.
Trump has insisted that federal troops are needed to protect government assets in the city. The city’s Democratic leadership has been criticized for its response. Daryl Turner, the head of the Portland Police Association, said Sunday, “The elected officials have condoned the destruction and chaos” in the city.
State Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum claimed in court papers that masked federal officers have arrested people on the street, far from the courthouse, with no probable cause and whisked them away in unmarked cars.
Early Monday, protesters outside Portland’s U.S. courthouse set a fire in the building’s entryway in yet another night of conflict with federal agents who repeatedly tear-gassed the demonstrators to drive them away, according to officials.
Videos posted by local protesters in Portland showed federal agents refusing to identify themselves and driving in vehicles that were unmarked.
“If the cancel culture mob will go after a football coach for wearing the quote-unquote wrong T-shirt while taking his boys fishing, imagine what he will do to law enforcement when they got their name,” Jordan said on Tuesday. “You got to be kidding.”
Jordan was referencing Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy who received backlash over his T-shirt choice, as a photograph from a fishing trip surfaced last month on social media.
Gundy was seen in the photo wearing a T-shirt with the logo of the news outlet OAN – One America News Network, which has previously criticized the Black Lives Matter movement, with one anchor labeling it a “farce.”
Acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Ken Cuccinelli, told Fox News on Monday, “In Portland, just like everywhere else, our agents are identified as police on front and back and they have their unit identifiers on both shoulders…. So Customs and border protection will have police on the front, Customs and Border Protection and the Homeland Security seal on each shoulder, and their unit identifier.”
“These are BORTAC, which is like a SWAT team, and they have an individual identifier as well,” he continued.
Jordan noted that “hard leftists are concerned that these federal agents may be coming in unmarked cars.”
“What do you want? If they come in marked cars, they’re going to get a brick through their window,” he continued.
“They have their identification on both shoulders,” Jordan said. “If they apprehend someone who is defacing or destroying federal property, which is the situation that they’re in Portland trying to stop, when they do that, they tell the person they are apprehending who they are and why they’re being apprehended, so what more do you want?”
“You want them to come in in a big marked vehicle so that the looters in the mob can throw bricks and frozen water bottles through the window? I don’t think so,” he continued, referencing some objects that were hurled at police officers during clashes recently in Chicago.
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“This is just common sense,” Jordan said. “This is the way it’s supposed to work and it would be nice if more people … would stand up and say, ‘This is not good for our communities, we welcome this help, we want law and order back, and this defund the police concept is completely wrong.’”
Fox News’ David Aaro and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
