Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield (D) warned on Monday that actions made by President Trump could be part of an effort to keep the commander in chief in power, among other things “you expect in a different country.”
“He’s weaponizing the Department of Justice, he’s normalizing the military,” Rayfield said on MSNBC’s “The Weeknight.” “He’s talking about rigging our elections to maintain power in November. He’s talking about cutting down on the free press. This is not America.”
Rayfield spoke with co-host Alicia Menendez about Trump using the arms of the presidency to go after his political opponents.
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“I worry about everybody in the United States, because this is a president who leads through fear, OK?” Rayfield said. “His entire party is scared to buck him. And this is what he’s doing. He is weaponizing this Department of Justice against his political opponents. This is not America.”
Rayfield said that Americans “cannot allow ourselves to become the frog in boiling water.”
“We need to give voice to these issues and push back as often as we can,” he added.
On Sunday, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump from sending the National Guard to Oregon. This was after Rayfield said he would take legal action against the administration for sending the California National Guard to Oregon.
U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, whom Trump appointed, granted the states of Oregon and California a temporary restraining order against the president’s deployment.
“The rule of law has prevailed. This ruling is more than a legal victory, it’s a victory for American democracy itself,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said during a Sunday press conference. “Donald Trump tried to turn our soldiers into instruments of his political will. While our fight continues, tonight the rule of law said ‘hell no’.”
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said early Monday on the social platform X that Immergut’s decision was “one of the most egregious and thunderous violations of constitutional order we have ever seen.”