OLYMPIA, Wash. — Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and Gov. Jay Inslee say that President Donald Trump is making a false claim to have had a role in ending the CHOP protest zone in Seattle.
When Trump was asked about the CHOP zone Thursday night, he took credit on Fox News for getting the Seattle Police Department to clean it up.
“One-hundred percent. We were going in. We were going in very soon. We let them know that, and all of a sudden, they didn’t want that, so they went in before we got there,” the president said.
In response, Durkan tweeted that “neither the president nor the White House ever contacted me to send federal forces into Seattle—which would have been rejected.”
Trump’s brag was part of his ongoing war of words with Inslee.
“I told Mike not to be complimentary to the governor because that governor is a snake,” Trump said back in March.
“He threatened to invade the state with armed forces, which never happened and wasn’t going to,” Inslee said on Thursday.
“This president is making things up. His comments are total nonsense,” Inslee’s office said in a statement when we asked about Trump’s claim to have warned local leaders about federal intervention.
Inslee rarely misses a chance to make clear his disdain for Trump, something that polls show many Washington voters share.
“We’ve seen a lead anywhere up to 26 points above the president’s number for (former) Vice President (Joe) Biden, so there’s a large swath of the voters of Washington state that are not going to be voting to reelect the president,” said Marco Lowe, a Seattle University political scientist.
Even the usually quiet Lt. Governor’s race is about Trump.
“Denny Heck, the Democrat for Lt. Governor who’s taken Trump on,” proclaims one TV ad for that race.
“Any criticism of the president is one of the more safest (sic) political comments you could make in this state short of ‘I’m going to hand out million-dollar checks to everyone,’” Lowe said.
While speaking with local reporters today, the president’s son boasted that his dad was best for Americans.
“They want to have and live in prosperous communities. They want to get their kids educated. They want to be able to live in peace and harmony with their neighbors, and Donald Trump and his policies will do that.”