President Trump calls out a White House reporter for accusing him of lying over coronavirus
President Trump and ABC correspondent Jon Karl had a tense exchange on Thursday after the latter accused the president of lying to the American people about the threat posed by the coronavirus, and suggested that as a result, they might not be able to trust him as a leader.
“Why did you lie to the American people?” Karl asked during a press briefing at the White House. “And why should we trust what you have to say now?”
Audio released on Wednesday provoked a media firestorm as it included Trump telling veteran journalist Bob Woodward earlier this year that he wanted to downplay the threat of the virus in order to avoid panicking the American people. Karl equated Trump’s stance with lying and used that word when asking the first question of the news conference.
Trump immediately started shaking his head in the middle of Karl’s question and panned the phrasing as “terrible.” “Such a terrible question and the phraseology — I didn’t lie. What I said is we have to be calm, we can’t be panicked.”
“These are a series of phone calls that we had, mostly phone calls, and Bob Woodward is somebody that I respect just from hearing the name from many, many years,” Trump added.
“Not knowing too much about his work, not caring about his work. But I thought it would be interesting to talk to him for a period of calls. So we did that. I don’t know if it’s good or bad. I don’t even know if the book is good or bad. But certainly, if he thought that was a bad statement, he would have reported it because he thinks that, you know, you don’t want to have anybody that is going to suffer medically because of some fact. And he didn’t report it because he didn’t think it was bad. Nobody thought it was bad. Wait a minute.”
Trump then returned to criticizing Karl, who has clashed with the president repeatedly in the past. “And your question, the way you phrased that is such a disgrace. It’s a disgrace to ABC television network, it’s a disgrace to your employer. And that’s the answer,” he said. While some cheered Karl online, others were more critical.
During his interview with Woodward, Trump specifically said he “wanted to always play it [the pandemic] down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”
Shortly after audio of the Woodward interview was published, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany defended Trump, arguing that he acted like “good leaders” do by staying “calm” in the midst of a crisis. She added that the president “has never lied to the American public on COVID.”
Both National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and Dr. Anthony Fauci have defended Trump, arguing that he didn’t distort the facts surrounding the virus. O’Brien’s predecessor, John Bolton, has argued that Trump’s actions “almost certainly” cost lives.
WASHINGTON – Investigative reporter Bob Woodward didn’t need that many anonymous sources for his new book on the Donald Trump administration.
He had Trump himself.
In the book, simply titled “Rage,” Woodward writes that he spoke with the president at least 18 times on everything from his thoughts on world leaders like authoritarians Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, his predecessor former President Barack Obama, U.S. allies and issues of race.
Trump has “enshrined personal impulse as a governing principle of his presidency,” Woodward writes, according to a copy of “Rage” obtained by USA TODAY.
The book’s most sensational revelation – that Trump publicly played down the threat of COVID-19, even though he told Woodward as early as February how dangerous it was – has also led to criticism that the author sat on the information for too long.
Trump, who called the book a “political hit job,” tweeted Thursday: “Bob Woodward had my quotes for many months. If he thought they were so bad or dangerous, why didn’t he immediately report them in an effort to save lives?”
Woodward said he needed time to check out what Trump told him.
At a brief news conference, Trump said, “I didn’t lie” about the COVID threat: “What I said is, we have to be calm; we can’t be panicked.”
Trump also told reporters he spoke to Woodward at length because “I thought it would be interesting to talk to him for a period of, you know, calls. So we did that.”
Other administration officials, past and present, also spoke with Woodward, leading to a number of bracing comments and anecdotes on an array of sensitive issues.
Here are some details from the book:
Race relations
When Woodward suggested that privileged people like Trump and him have a responsibility to better “understand the anger and pain” felt by Black people, Trump responded to the author saying, “No. … You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t you? Just listen to you. … Wow. No, I don’t feel that at all.”
Trump also protested criticism of him by African Americans, telling Woodward at one point: “I have done a tremendous amount for the Black community. And, honestly, I’m not feeling any love.”
Trump on Obama
As with the new book by Trump attorney Michael Cohen, the current president makes clear his disdain for his predecessor.
“’I don’t know. I don’t think Obama’s smart,” Trump tells Woodward at one point. “See? I think he’s highly overrated. And I don’t think he’s a great speaker.'”
At another point, Trump makes clear that one of his main goals is to undo Obama’s accomplishments: “Ninety percent of the things he’s done, I’ve taken apart.”
When he was Defense secretary, Jim Mattis would go to church to pray for the country in light of various Trump statements, ranging from threats against nuclear-armed North Korea to attacks on NATO and other U.S. allies.
“This degradation of the American experiment is real,” Mattis told an associate, according to the book.
Woodward writes about when Mattis resigned shortly after Trump announced he wanted to pull all U.S. troops from Syria: “When I was basically directed to do something that I thought went beyond stupid to felony stupid, strategically jeopardizing our place in the world and everything else, that’s when I quit.”
After a sudden Trump decision to cancel training exercises with South Korea – a move meant to please Kim – Mattis expressed concern about the message being sent to China, Russia, and North Korea.
“What we’re doing is we’re actually showing how to destroy America,” Mattis is quoted as saying by Woodward. “That’s what we’re showing them. How to isolate us from all of our allies. How to take us down. And it’s working very well. We are declaring war on one another inside America. It’s actually working against us right now.”
Trump also clashed with his first Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, but never gave him a specific reason for his dismissal, which was made via tweet.
“Tillerson was never told why he was fired,” Woodward wrote. “The president did not give him a reason. It had earlier leaked out that Tillerson had called Trump a ‘f—— moron’ at a July 20, 2017, Tank meeting. Probably nothing could have triggered Trump’s insecurities more.”
Russia and Putin
Aides remained suspicious of Trump’s relationship with Russia and its authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin.
Dan Coats, Trump’s first director of National Intelligence, never could totally shake the feeling that Putin “had something” on Trump, and that explained the president’s fealty to the American rival.
“He suspected the worst but found nothing that would show Trump was indeed in Putin’s pocket,” Woodward writes of Coats, later adding: “There was no proof, period. But Coats’s doubts continued, never fully dissipating.”
Trump also praises Putinand at one point told Woodward he agreed with the autocrat’s claim that U.S. investigations into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election hampered relations between the two countries.
Trump also had nice things to say about Kim Jong Un, and, in a conversation with Woodward, likened his first meeting with the North Korea dictator to a budding romance.
“You meet a woman,” Trump told Woodward. “In one second, you know whether or not it’s all going to happen.”
‘We’re suckers’
Trump has a harder time with allies.
The president, in the book, complains about military obligations around the world, saying the United States has become “suckers” to NATO members and other allies like South Korea.
Shortly after his election, Trump questioned the value of NATO while interviewing Mattis for the Defense secretary job.
“We’re protecting South Korea from North Korea, and they’re making a fortune with televisions and ships and everything else. Right?” Trump told Woodward. “They make so much money. Costs us $10 billion. We’re suckers.”
The potential break-up of U.S. alliances was a subject of discussion between Mattis and Coats.
“In just one example, Trump wanted to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and South Korea,” Woodward writes. “There was a rush. Instantly. ‘Get them out!’ Trump had commanded.”
“‘That’s crazy,'” Mattis said to Coats. “‘That’s dangerous.'”
‘He says that he didn’t do it’
Trump said he protected Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, telling Woodward that “I saved his a–.”
“I was able to get Congress to leave him alone,” Trump said. “I was able to get them to stop.”
Trump also said he doesn’t believe the prince ordered Khashoggi’s murder, despite conclusions to the contrary by U.S. intelligence services.
“He says that he didn’t do it,” Trump told Woodward.
COVID-19
The most reported part of the book concerns the still-severe pandemic: Trump admits he was aware of the dangers of COVID-19 as early as February, even as he downplayed the threat in public.
On March 19, seven weeks after National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien warned him this would be the “biggest national security threat” he would face, Trump told Woodward: “I wanted to always play it down … I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”
Later, on July 21, Trump gave himself good marks for how he handled the pandemic. “I give ourselves an A,” he said, although he suggested the grade was incomplete.
“If we come up with the vaccines and therapeutics, then I give myself an A-plus,” he added.
‘I can handle more’
In his last interview with Trump, Woodward asked a question that he said he’d asked many other presidents: What have you learned about yourself?
Trump’s response: “I can handle more than other people can handle.”
Trump then launched into a soliloquy about how tough it is being president – tougher for him than just about anybody, he said.
“More people come up to me and say – and I mean very strong people, people that are successful even. A lot of people. They say, I swear to you, I don’t know how it’s possible for you to handle what you handle. How you’ve done this, with the kind of opposition, the kind of shenanigans, the kind of illegal witch hunts.”
Trump said he has opposition “like nobody has” but added, “In the meantime, right now, I’m looking at the White House. Okay? I’m staring right at the walls of the White House.”
‘Dynamite behind every door’
At one point, Trump tells Woodward that, when you’re president, “there’s dynamite behind every door.”
At the end of his book, Woodward concludes that some of Trump’s own actions are among the things that have blown up.
“When his performance as president is taken in its entirety,” Woodward writes, “I can only reach one conclusion: Trump is the wrong man for the job.”
An unprecedented fire season is wreaking havoc across the Western US, with wildfires tearing across multiple states and air quality plummeting. At least 10 people have been killed and over 3,000 homes destroyed since the season began. California’s wildfires, driven by extreme blazes in August and September, have already burned more acres than any year on record. As of Thursday, there are blazes burning in at least ten western states, according to the interagency incident information system.
The images and stories coming out of the US west are eerily reminiscent of those experienced by Australians in early 2020.
In January, vast swaths of Australia burned. The skies turned orange, and smoke blanketed the country’s largest cities. Entire cities were flattened. Now, across the Pacific, this grim history is repeating. San Francisco has turned red and orange, smoke blotting out the sun.
There are glimmers of hope, as a freak blizzard slowed fire growth in Colorado. But in a sign of things to come, the fire season is yet to peak, and major fires have broken out in both Oregon, where hundred of homes have been lost, and Washington, where more of the state burned in 24 hours than in 12 of the last 18 fire seasons.
Here’s what we know about the ongoing fires and how you can help from the US or afar.
Fires can start in a variety of ways. Human activity, like carelessly discarding a cigarette, poorly maintained infrastructure or even gender reveal parties with pyrotechnics can spark fires. Some of the wildfires currently blazing across California are the result of accidental ignition.
Fires can also be deliberately lit, though arson has not been linked to the current conflagrations. Rumors have circulated through social media that some of the fires may have been intentionally set by either right-wing or leftist activists, leading some officials to mount social media campaigns of their own to dispel the myths.
Nature also conspires to begin fires, with lightning strikes a major concern. In California, intense thunderstorms kicked off a number of large blazes in August. Prolonged periods of drought and mismanagement of national forests may also play a role in helping these fires start. With the fire season getting longer, the window to perform critical hazard reduction burns has decreased, giving fires a chance to really take hold. The risk of the wildfires burning across western US was well-known to scientists and, regardless of the origins, fires are fueled by a dizzying number of factors.
A lack of rain and low soil moisture can help enable small fires to grow in size, and coupled with the high temperatures and fierce winds, small fires can quickly become huge infernos. This all feels extremely similar to anyone familiar with the bushfire crisis confronted by Australia in January. Environmental factors contributed significantly to the unprecedented fire season down under and they are playing out again in the US — partially driven by the negative effects of climate change.
What is the connection to climate change?
Wildfires aren’t started by climate change, but they are exacerbated by the effects of global warming. The Climate Council, an independent, community funded climate organization, suggests fire conditions are now more dangerous than they were in the past, with longer bushfire seasons, drought, drier fuels and soils, and record-breaking heat in Australia. The link between fires and climate change has become a political football, but experts agree climate change explains the unprecedented nature of the current crisis.
Wildfires are getting worse in the US. According to data from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity program, on average, there are more wildfires, and they are burning more land each year. A study published in July 2019 concluded that “human-caused warming has already significantly enhanced wildfire activity in California … and will likely continue to do so in the coming decades.”
There’s no question that 2020 will be one of the hottest years on record for the planet, and a 75% chance it will be the hottest ever, according to a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Increased temperatures allow fires to burn more intensely and also cause forests to dry out and burn more easily. The heating is unequivocally caused by climate change.
On Sept. 9, California Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted a short video by Bloomberg’s QuickTake in which he said “climate change has profoundly impacted the reality that we’re currently experiencing.”
Over 2 million acres have burned this year — SO FAR. We haven’t even hit “peak” fire season.
There is also a horrifying feedback loop that occurs when great swaths of land are ablaze, a fact the globe grappled with during the Amazon fires of 2019 and the Australian bushfires of 2020. Huge fires release large amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. The gas, which makes up only a small percentage of the total gases in the atmosphere, is exceptionally good at trapping heat.
Andrew Sullivan, a fire research team leader for CSIRO, an Australian government research agency, examined how technology may help predict and fight against fires. In September, he told CNET that “changes to the climate are exposing more areas to the likelihood of fire.”
What areas are affected?
Fires are burning across the western US, but the greatest conflagrations are across California and Oregon.
More than 2.5 million acres have burned in California, with over 2,500 more fires than at the same point in 2019. One of the largest fires during the Australian season, the Gospers mountain megafire, burnt through around 2.2 million acres. “Unprecedented” is the word again being used by officials, weather services and media to describe the size and severity of the blazes. The dust and ash from the fires have turned the skies orange across California.
Blazes in Oregon have been increasingly destructive, driven by heavy winds. “I want to be upfront in saying that we expect to see a great deal of loss, both in structures and human lives,” Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said during a briefing Tuesday. “This could be the greatest loss of human lives and property due to wildfire in our state’s history.”
Washington has also experienced significant fires, with almost 350,000 acres burned in a 24-hour period in early September. Two large fires broke out on Sept. 8, and Gov. Jay Inslee said “more acres burned … than in 12 of the last 18 entire fire seasons in the state of Washington.”
In California, the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or CalFire, heads up the wildland firefighting effort, but actually beating back the flames on the ground is a massive collaboration that also involves local, county and federal resources. Teams of National Forest Service and other agencies’ “hotshot” teams travel from as far as New Mexico to fight fires on the ground.
California also employs a controversial “conservation camp” program in which prison inmates are trained to fight fires. Prisoners can earn time off their sentences and work towards continue in a career en emergency services upon their release. But the program has been criticized for the dangerous work that comes with meager pay.
Fine particles in the air can cause damage to the lungs and increase inflammation in the short-term. What is less certain is the long-term effects of exposure to smoke.
We have become intimately familiar with the use of masks over the last six months, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, but you may be wondering whether you need to use one to protect against smoke from wildfires. The short answer is: You probably should, but filtering smoke and ash out of the air requires an N95 or P100 mask — and public health officials suggest these should be reserved for health care workers. They also cannot completely filter out some of the gases present in wildfire smoke.
Cloth masks and other coverings we have become familiar with during the pandemic will not be effective at protecting against smoke. The US Environmental Protection Agency says remaining indoors and limiting your time outdoors is “the most effective way” to protect yourself during wildfire emergencies.
The California Community Foundation is taking donations to support immediate disaster relief and long-term recovery efforts. You can find the donation link here.
The California Fire Foundation provides emotional and financial assistance to families of fallen firefighters, firefighter and the communities they protect. You can donate here.
The Los Angeles County Fire Department Foundation has a donations page for “supporting our paramedics, firefighters, lifeguards and other personnel along with important community programs.”
There are a number of great mental health resources for those in distress. Mental Health America has collated an extensive list of phone numbers and aid. Americans can call Lifeline on 1-800-273-8255 and the Disaster Distress Helpline on 1-800-985-5990.
Other things you can do
Raise awareness! You can tweet and share and post this story — and dozens of others — all across the web. More eyeballs means more help to those who need it.
Run your online searches through Ecosia, which uses profits to plant trees where they’re needed most. Trees help reduce the carbon dioxide load. It can be added to Chrome.
In the US, if you want to contact elected officials and make your voice heard about climate change action — you can do that here.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., brought the measure to the Senate floor this week as efforts by the Trump administration and Democratic leaders to strike a bipartisan relief agreement remained stalled. He aimed not only to show that Republicans, and particularly vulnerable GOP senators running for reelection this year, were taking action to fight the pandemic, but also to put pressure on Democrats ahead of Election Day.
“They can tell American families they care more about politics than helping them,” McConnell said of Democratic senators who oppose the bill.
Congress has failed to pass a fifth coronavirus aid package even as the outbreak infects tens of thousands of Americans per day and economic pain felt by millions of jobless people sharpens. Lifelines including the jobless benefits, a federal moratorium on evictions and the window to apply for Paycheck Protection Program small business loans have all lapsed.
While President Donald Trump has taken unilateral steps to extend temporary unemployment aid to some Americans and limit evictions for a few months, only Congress can pass comprehensive relief because it controls federal spending.
Doubts have grown about lawmakers’ ability to approve any more stimulus during the heated final weeks before the 2020 election. Even so, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Thursday she is hopeful Congress can pass another bill before the Nov. 3 election.
Asked Wednesday about whether another relief bill would come together, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin responded, “I don’t know.”
“We’ll see. I hope there is. It’s important to a lot of people out there,” the top Trump administration negotiator in aid talks said.
As Republicans try to hold on to their 53-47 Senate majority in November, every GOP incumbent running this year supported the aid package. The most vulnerable Senate Democrat, Doug Jones of Alabama, opposed it.
So did Sens. Gary Peters of Michigan, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Tina Smith of Minnesota, all of whom will face voters this year in states where the 2016 election was close.
“They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals,” the president said.
And in a discussion with Mr. Woodward, Mr. Trump called the U.S. military “suckers” for paying extensive costs to protect South Korea. Mr. Woodward wrote that he was stunned when the president said of South Korea, “We’re defending you, we’re allowing you to exist.”
Mr. Woodward also reports that Mr. Trump chewed out Mr. Coats after a briefing with reporters about the threat that Russia presented to the nation’s elections systems. Mr. Coats had gone further than he and the president had discussed beforehand.
When asked about the pain “Black people feel in this country,” Mr. Trump was unable to express empathy.
Mr. Woodward pointed out that both he and Mr. Trump were “white, privileged” and asked if Mr. Trump was working to “understand the anger and the pain, particularly, Black people feel in this country.”
Mr. Trump replied, “No,” and added: “You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t you? Just listen to you. Wow. No, I don’t feel that at all.”
Mr. Woodward writes that he tried to coax the president into speaking about his understanding of race. But Mr. Trump would only say over and over that the economy had been positive for Black people before the coronavirus led to an economic crisis.
Mr. Woodward gained insight into Mr. Trump’s relationships with the leaders of North Korea and Russia.
Mr. Trump provided Mr. Woodward with the details of letters between himself and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, in which the two men fawn over each other. Mr. Kim wrote in one letter that their relationship was like a “fantasy film.”
In describing his chemistry with Mr. Kim, Mr. Trump said: “You meet a woman. In one second, you know whether or not it’s going to happen.”
Firefighters cut defensive lines and light backfires to protect structures behind a Cal Fire fire station at the Bear Fire, part of the North Lightning Complex of fires in the Berry Creek area of Butte County, Calif., on Wednesday.
Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images
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Firefighters cut defensive lines and light backfires to protect structures behind a Cal Fire fire station at the Bear Fire, part of the North Lightning Complex of fires in the Berry Creek area of Butte County, Calif., on Wednesday.
Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images
At least seven people have died in wildfires that are raging in Oregon, California and Washington state, adding to the horrible toll from record-setting fires in 2020.
“This could be the greatest loss of human lives and property due to wildfires in our state’s history,” Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said.
Large parts of the West Coast were under warnings for elevated fire weather threats Thursday, but there could soon be a measure of relief as forecasts call for a decrease in fire-driving winds.
“The strong, gusty winds over the West are expected to weaken by the weekend,” the National Weather Service says. Even so, the agency adds, high temperatures and low humidity will still pose a threat.
The seven confirmed deaths are three people in Oregon, three in California and one in Washington state.
The Almeda Drive Fire in southern Oregon, which devastated the towns of Phoenix and Talent, caused at least one death, Jackson County Sheriff Nate Sickler said. The body was found near the fire’s point of origin and “the cause of death is under criminal investigation,” Jefferson Public Radio reports.
Two other people died in Marion County, “where a complex of fires has burned whole canyons east of the Willamette River,” Oregon Public Broadcasting reports. Those victims were a boy, 13, and his grandmother, the Salem Statesman Journal reports. The boy’s mother is in critical condition at a Portland hospital, the newspaper says.
Vehicles were destroyed by a wildfire in Malden, Wash., on Tuesday. Large parts of the West Coast are under warnings for elevated fire weather threats Thursday, but there may be relief if fire-driving winds decrease as expected.
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Vehicles were destroyed by a wildfire in Malden, Wash., on Tuesday. Large parts of the West Coast are under warnings for elevated fire weather threats Thursday, but there may be relief if fire-driving winds decrease as expected.
Jed Conklin/AP
A 1-year-old died in the Cold Springs Fire in northern Washington state, Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz said in a statement. The boy was killed as his family tried to reach safer ground, according to KXLY-TV. His parents were reportedly hospitalized with severe burns.
In California, three people died as the fast-growing Bear Fire forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes in Yuba and Butte counties, according to Capital Public Radio. Local officials did not offer details about those deaths when they initially announced them.
Evacuation orders include part of Paradise – the community devastated by the Camp Fire in 2018. Nearby residents say they’re vividly recalling that tragedy this week.
“People said, ‘Oh, our tires were melting, you know, and just scared to death and getting burned,’ ” Pamela Newton tells Capital Public Radio. “And that’s all I could think about.”
Butte County firefighters watch as flames quickly spread across a road at the Bear Fire in Oroville, Calif., on Wednesday. The local sheriff says three people died as a result of fires in the area.
Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images
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Butte County firefighters watch as flames quickly spread across a road at the Bear Fire in Oroville, Calif., on Wednesday. The local sheriff says three people died as a result of fires in the area.
Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images
Other people who live near Lake Oroville described fleeing the small town of Berry Creek in the middle of the night, driving through a corridor of burning houses as ash rained down from the sky. Before they left, many of them tried to give their homes a chance to survive.
“I left the sprinklers on the roof when I left,” Ron Elms tells Capital Public Radio. “I left the generator on. I did everything I could to save it. So we’ll just see.”
California has already seen more than 2.5 million acres burn this year — a record dating back at least three decades to when the state started tracking the statistic. In a normal season, an average of 300,000 acres would likely burn.
According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, “2020 has already taken the number one spot for acres burned and there are still several months to go” in the fire season.
Patricia Fouts sits with her dog, Murphy, and other evacuated residents of a senior living home in an evacuation center at the Oregon State Fairgrounds in Salem, Ore., on Tuesday. Marian Estates senior living home in Sublimity, Ore., was evacuated early Tuesday as a wildfire closed in on the area.
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Patricia Fouts sits with her dog, Murphy, and other evacuated residents of a senior living home in an evacuation center at the Oregon State Fairgrounds in Salem, Ore., on Tuesday. Marian Estates senior living home in Sublimity, Ore., was evacuated early Tuesday as a wildfire closed in on the area.
Andrew Selsky/AP
Two new large fires have emerged in Oregon, the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center said in its update Thursday morning, adding to the misery in an area that also saw “significant growth” among the fires already burning in western Oregon’s valleys.
Gov. Brown has asked President Trump to approve her request for a major disaster declaration for Oregon.
A smoky haze blanketed San Francisco on Wednesday. California has already seen more than 2.5 million acres burn this year.
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Brittany Hosea-Small/AFP via Getty Images
A smoky haze blanketed San Francisco on Wednesday. California has already seen more than 2.5 million acres burn this year.
Brittany Hosea-Small/AFP via Getty Images
Dozens of unpredictable and large fires over such a large geographic area has strained firefighting resources. While some neighboring states have pitched in to help, the effort has become international.
“Federal fire managers say Canadian and Mexican fire crews are now helping out on the West Coast,” NPR’s Kirk Siegler reports. “And the agency is requesting more help in the form of 10 hand crews from the U.S. military.”
Those crews might get a break if the winds drop, which would be welcome news along the coast but less so in inland areas — as the massive banks of smoke that have accrued along the Pacific coast would start to move eastward.
A low-level wind pattern has been driving smoke to the west for several days, blanketing cities such as Seattle and San Francisco with an eerie, orange haze. As the wind direction shifts, “smoke from the wildfires may waft and settle inland,” the NWS says.
BUTTE COUNTY (CBS13) — The latest on the Bear Fire, an extension of the North Complex Fire that started the Plumas National Forest:
10:30 a.m.
Cal Fire has given a new name to the wildfire that has now destroyed or damaged thousands of structures.
The Bear Fire will now be called the North Complex West Zone by authorities, Cal Fire announced Thursday morning.
It’s unclear why the name was changed, but the new designation reflects how the wildfire is part of the larger North Complex Fire that had been burning for nearly a month before exploding this week.
— CAL FIRE Butte Unit/Butte County Fire Department (@CALFIRE_ButteCo) September 10, 2020
Cal Fire also listed a total of 2,000 structures being destroyed or damaged as of Thursday morning. It’s unclear how many of those structures were homes at this point. Another 22,356 structures remain threatened.
As of Thursday, the North Complex West Zone/Bear Fire has grown to 70,250 acres. Containment still stands at 0 percent.
7:57 a.m.
Authorities in Butte County Thursday were looking for at least 12 people missing in the Bear Fire after three people were found dead in connection with the fire Wednesday.
One mother, Jessica Williams, reported her 16-year-old son Josiah missing. He was last seen in Berry Creek and, as of Thursday morning, she says she still hasn’t been able to contact him.
Some 20,000 people are under evacuation orders in the area due to the Bear Fire, which is part of the North Complex fires in Butte, Plumas and Yuba counties
After a seriously burst of wind storms, the fire exploded over the past few days after burning for about three weeks. Hundreds of homes and other structures have either been damage or destroyed. As of Thursday morning, the North Complex fires had burned 252,163 acres, or nearly 400 square miles, with containment at 24 percent – down from a high of 51 percent it was before these new starts.
Parts of the communities of Paradise and Concow, which were devastated by the 2018 Camp Fire, are once again being threatened by the Bear Fire.
The U.S. Forest Service says winds were predicted to shift Thursday to the southwest, which could produce increased fire behavior and smoke.
2020 has been quite a year: A global pandemic, wilfires, the glaciers melting…and it doesn’t seem to end.
Residents of San Francisco and elsewhere in California woke Wednesday to a deep orange sky that triggered apocalyptic visions in a year already rife with disturbing events.
Skies so dark at times that it appeared more night than day were accompanied in some places with ash falling like snow, the cause being massive wild fires filling the air with smoke and cinders.
“The orange skies this morning are a result of wildfire smoke in the air,” San Francisco Bay air quality officials said in a tweet.
“These smoke particles scatter blue light and only allow yellow-orange-red light to reach the surface, causing skies to look orange.”
As smoke gets thick in some areas, it blocks sunlight causing dark skies, the officials explained.
Photos of the eerie scene, particularly of a San Francisco skyline fit for a dystopian science fiction film, spread quickly on social media.
“Is there a word for ‘the apocalypse is upon us burnt sienna?’ read one tweet fired off by someone who felt using the word ‘orange’ to describe the sky was being too kind.
Others likened the scenes to planets other than Earth.
“If literal fire skies don’t wake us up to climate change, then nothing will,” tweeted YouTube influencer and Zadiko tea startup chief Zack Kornfeld.
“Enjoy joking about how crazy this year is because we made this mess and it’s only going to get worse.”
Strange and foreboding orange skies and a layer of falling ash greeted Bay Area residents as they woke on Wednesday, rubbing their eyes and wondering if they’d awoken on a different planet — and pondering just how long the daylight dimness would last. https://t.co/VoXXF6FMw1pic.twitter.com/KdbcD099PF
Absolutely no filter involved here. This is the morning sky over San Francisco at 8am. Orange, dark and ashy bc of wildfires. I was two days away from my 8th birthday when Mt. St. Helens shook the planet. I’m from Seattle-Tacoma and i remember the sky looked just like this. pic.twitter.com/zgOkT2Ou5f
Dark skies blocking the sun chilled temperatures at what has historically been the warmest time year in San Francisco.
“Geo-color imagery shows a very thick multilevel smoke deck over much of California,” the US National Weather Service said in a tweet.
“This smoke is filtering the incoming energy from the sun, causing much cooler temperatures and dark dreary red-shifted skies across many areas.”
What were being described as “unprecedented” wildfires, fueled by strong winds and searing temperatures, were raging cross a wide swathe of California, Oregon and Washington on Wednesday, destroying scores of homes and businesses in the western US states and forcing tens of thousands of residents to evacuate.
In California, where at least eight deaths have been reported, National Guard helicopters rescued hundreds of people trapped by the Creek Fire in the Sierra National Forest.
In Oregon, Governor Kate Brown declared the fires in the northwestern state to be a “once-in-a-generation event.”
Jay Inslee, the governor of neighboring Washington state, described the wildfires as “unprecedented and heartbreaking.”
Inslee, who campaigned for the Democratic nomination for president on a platform of battling climate change, and California Governor Gavin Newsom both blamed the effects of a changing climate for the exceptional ferocity of this year’s blazes.
“I quite literally have no patience for climate change deniers,” Newsom said. “It’s completely inconsistent, that point of view, with the reality on the ground.”
A third grade teacher in South Carolina who was in her classroom less than two weeks ago has died from COVID-19, school district officials announced Wednesday.
Demetria “Demi” Bannister, 28, was diagnosed with the virus on Friday and died Monday, Richland 2 school district spokeswoman Libby Roof said in a press release.
Bannister had just started her fifth year teaching third grade at Windsor Elementary School in Columbia, school officials said.
Officials said Bannister was at school on Aug. 28 for a teacher workday, but started working from home the following week as students began the school year with online classes. The district said it will be tracing anyone who may have come into contact with Bannister and instructed custodians to deeply clean the school.
Bannister’s death comes as South Carolina reported only 250 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday — the lowest since June 3. But officials also reported a lower number of people tested: 1,744, which translates to a 14 percent positivity rate.
According to The Associated Press, no other teacher deaths related to COVID-19 have been reported in South Carolina, with most districts allowing students to attend classes in person at least one day a week.
Last week, a video of students crowding at a bar near the University of South Carolina sparked controversy on social media, as many of those who appeared in the video were not wearing masks or adhering to social distancing guidelines. The university’s coronavirus tracker is reporting more than 1,700 confirmed COVID-19 cases on campus since Aug. 1.
Tucker Carlson calls out John Kerry and Democrats for endangering troops and sending them to fight endless wars
Democrats and some Republicans are priming the public for a revival of an interventionist foreign policy if Joe Biden is elected president, Tucker Carlson warned Wednesday.
The “Tucker Carlson Tonight” host devoted the opening segment of his program to the reaction that followed President Trump’s announcement that the number of U.S. troops in Iraq will be cut by more than 40% by the end of this month.
“Too many thousands of American servicemen are deployed in dozens of countries around the world and have been for generations,” Carlson said. “In some cases, there may be a good reason they are there. In many other cases though, we just don’t talk about it. You’re not allowed to. In Washington, mindless interventionism is very much a bipartisan project. Both parties support it.”
According to the host, Trump is the only person in Washington who seems to disagree with the notion that “the more troops we send overseas the better.”
“He has been talking relentlessly about bringing the troops home from countries around the world,” Carlson said, “and maybe more than any other single reason, talk like that makes official Washington hate Donald Trump. “
The announcement of a reduced footprint in Iraq should be cause for “widespread celebration,” Carlson argued.
“That means families united, Americans out of harm’s way. But very few in Washington are celebrating. The press corps, including some people who should know better, are still telling you how much Donald Trump hates the troops and wants them to die — the guy who’s bringing them home,” he asserted.
Carlson closed with a warning to voters that if the Democratic ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is elected, they “are planning a new war, this one in the far away and strategically irrelevant nation of Syria.
“They aren’t even trying to hide that, and they haven’t been for a long time.”
Voters had more confidence in the presidential hopefuls’ physical fitness to hold the White House. A 52% majority said the 74-year-old Trump is physically fit to be president, and 54% said the same about Biden, who is 77.
In a CNBC/Change Research national poll, 55% said Trump was mentally unfit, while 45% said he was fit. Biden was deemed unfit by 52% and fit by 48%. The survey was conducted with 1,902 likely voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.25 percentage points.
SHAVER LAKE, Calif. — Wildfires driven by strong winds were racing through more than a dozen Western states Thursday, taking lives, incinerating hundreds of homes and scarring a swath of land almost as big as Connecticut.
“Firefighters across the Western states are seeing extreme fire behavior,” the National Fire Information Center. Three deaths have been reported in California, three in Oregon and one in Washington state.
In Northern California’s Butte County, Sheriff Kory Honea said at least three people have died, 12 are missing, and hundreds of homes are feared destroyed by the North Complex Fire above San Francisco. Thousands more homes were threatened.
Several people have been critically burned and 20,000 people were under evacuation orders or warnings in Plumas, Yuba and Butte counties. Thick smoke completely blocked sunlight in some large areas, and distant flames turned the sky orange in others.
“Time and time again we have seen how dangerous wildfires can be. … So I ask that you please, please please be prepared, maintain situational awareness and heed the warnings,” Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea pleaded.
John Sykes, a 50-year resident, managed to flee with his car and some clothes, but he watched the town burn from about a mile away.
“The school is gone, the fire department’s gone, the bar’s gone, the laundromat’s gone, the general store’s gone,” Sykes told the Sacramento Bee, adding, “I’ll never go back. … I never want to see California again.”
The fire also threatened Paradise, a town devastated in 2018 by the deadliest blaze in state history. More than 80 residents died and almost 20,000 buildings were destroyed in that fire.
In the Sierra National Forest, authorities say it will likely be at least a week, and possibly as long as a month, before the Creek Fire is controlled enough to permit residents to return. The fire has displaced tens of thousands of Californians, and the Red Cross has already helped more than 600 people with hotel rooms since group shelters are prohibited during the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.
Fire officials have not yet released detailed maps of the fire damage but say at least 60 homes and 278 commercial-residential structures were destroyed. Rocky Alec, 22, and Kristen Kipp, 21, decided to abandon their trailer home near Mammoth.
“You couldn’t really see anything. There was smoke everywhere. We were in too much smoke to see flames,” Alec said. “At first we were like it was just another fire. Then it got real.”
In Southern California, fires burned in Los Angeles, San Bernardino and San Diego counties. But severe Santa Ana winds forecast for the area were weaker than predicted.
The El Dorado Fire, which has burned about 20 square miles in San Bernardino County, was listed as 23% contained Thursday. Almost 1,000 firefighters were “actively engaged in structure protection and successfully defended multiple structures,” Cal Fire said.
Homes have been lost, however, and damage assessment teams were working to confirm the extent of the damages, the number of homes and businesses and their locations. Fire officials said the blaze was sparked by a pyrotechnic device used during a “gender reveal” event Saturday..
The strong, gusty winds over the West are expected to weaken on Thursday and into the weekend, the National Weather Service said.
“We’re encouraged that the wind activity appears to be dying down,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said. “The rest of the week looks a little more favorable.”
However, low humidity and warmer temperatures will be enough for elevated fire concerns to remain, according to the Weather Service. In addition, the rather stagnant air mass will likely keep areas of smoke in place across the Northwest, Great Basin, California and other areas across the West dealing with the wildfires, resulting in continued poor air quality, AccuWeather said.
Some more substantial relief may be on the way for the Northwest by early next week as a storm system approaches the coast, potentially bringing some welcome rainfall, according to AccuWeather.
Several weeks of fire season remain across a region plagued by high heat and parched terrain. California has already set a record with nearly 2.3 million acres burned this year. Oregon and Washington state also have struggled with historic blazes.
Wind-driven fires were also blazing in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
In Oregon, a series of fires killed three people and forced residents to flee flames, smoke and destruction. Gov. Kate Brown said hundreds of residences have been destroyed. She said emergency responders were “inundated” urged residents not to call 911 to report smoke or ash clouds.
“This could be the greatest loss of human life and property due to wildfire in our state’s history,” Brown said.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee placed the blame squarely on climate change and promised “steps to defeat” the impact of global warming.
“We are not going to surrender the future of this state to climate change,” he said. “We are stronger, smarter and more resilient than that.” And I’ll be thinking of these fires and the communities they’re impacting when we take our next steps to defeat climate change.
Bacon reported from Arlington, Va. Contributing: Doyle Rice, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
PORTLAND, Ore. — The protest outside Portland’s federal courthouse had died down by 3:40 a.m. on July 29, when a green laser shined down from a seventh-floor balcony used as a lookout by federal agents.
The laser landed on John Hacker, an activist and citizen-journalist standing in a park about 170 feet away. It skittered across Hacker’s feet, head and torso for more than 45 seconds. Suddenly, an unmarked van pulled in front of him. Doors slid open. Heavily armed men in camouflage tactical gear surrounded Hacker and took him into custody.
Hacker, 36, is among nearly two dozen people arrested but not charged during the Trump administration’s five-week response, from July through early August, to the demonstrations against police brutality in Portland. Before letting Hacker go, federal agents collected a DNA swab, photographed him and confiscated a phone that has not been returned, he said.
The Washington Post conducted an in-depth examination of four instances when unsuspecting people were scooped up from the city’s streets by federal agents in the middle of the night, based on information that turned out to be inaccurate or insufficient to charge them with a crime. The cases bring to light the tactics employed by border agents and immigration officers deployed to Portland for an operation President Trump has touted as a success.
Operation Diligent Valor has become a prominent issue in the presidential campaign. Trump has said his law-and-order approach is necessary to stop vandalism and property damage during protests in Portland and elsewhere. Activists and some Democrats have portrayed it as an unnecessary escalation.
The shooting death of a man after confrontations on Aug. 29 in Portland between Trump supporters and Black Lives Matter protesters intensified the divide. The next day, Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said the administration was open to sending federal officers back into Portland, over the opposition of local officials.
From detention to release, the four people whose cases were examined by The Post described experiences they found harrowing and unnerving. Three are speaking for the first time.
One was picked up and interrogated in an unmarked van, she said, and then dropped off in another location in the city. Two others, including Hacker, said they were held in jail cells before being let go without explanation or charges. Another, a U.S. citizen like the other three, was mistakenly identified as a foreigner and arrested on charges that were later dropped.
Previously unpublished security camera footage and other videos obtained by The Post confirmed elements of each person’s account. The examination also drew on videos from bystanders, interviews with witnesses and court records.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Oregon said 23 of 98 arrests by federal agents during the operation did not result in charges.
The office would not name the 23 people, making it impossible to judge how complete the tally is. Kevin Sonoff, a spokesman, said the office considered someone arrested if they “were detained for any amount of time” and “weren’t free to go for whatever reason.” Under that definition, all the cases examined by The Post would qualify as arrests.
Sonoff said that as part of their routine process, federal prosecutors reviewed evidence in each case to determine whether charges were warranted.
“Our office works closely with law enforcement to review the facts surrounding each arrest,” he wrote in an email. “Based upon that discussion and an assessment of potential federal charges, prosecutors accept or decline cases using their best professional judgment as to whether a case should proceed to court.”
A Department of Homeland Security spokesman, Harry Fones, said in a statement to The Post that “when federal law enforcement has probable cause that someone has committed a federal crime they are able to detain and investigate.”
In Hacker’s case, the DHS spokesman acknowledged that Customs and Border Protection agents detained Hacker because they believed he matched the description of someone suspected of aiding a protester who threw a firecracker at a federal officer. “Upon further investigation and coordination with the U.S. Attorney’s office, a decision was made not to pursue charges against Mr. Hacker,” the spokesman said.
Hacker, whose live-stream videos earlier in the night show him documenting the protests but not participating, denied the allegation and called the explanation “laughable.”
The U.S. attorney’s office and DHS declined to comment on the other three cases.
The other three people who shared their accounts with The Post also denied doing anything illegal.
The death of George Floyd after a Minneapolis police officer put his knee on Floyd’s neck in late May led to scattered protests across Portland, a city with a history of demonstrations for liberal causes.
But the arrival of DHS agents in early July re-energized the protests, channeling ire toward federal authorities and turning the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse into the epicenter of unrest.
Each night, even as most of the city fell silent, longtime activists and new protesters gathered around the one-block building in a show of force. Federal agents emerged regularly to fire tear gas and clashed with people suspected of throwing projectiles, shining lasers at officers or shooting fireworks at the building.
Evelyn Bassi, 30, a lifelong Portland resident, began attending nightly protests in early June. A bartender and chef who hasn’t been able to work during the pandemic, Bassi said she came to the courthouse in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
On July 15, around 1:55 a.m., she and a friend, Ryan Ottomano, were standing at an empty intersection behind the courthouse, video shows. They were watching protesters chalk messages on the pavement, she said, and were preparing to go home.
A dark gray Dodge Grand Caravan with tinted windows pulled up next to them, according to security camera footage of the intersection obtained by The Post from Multnomah County, which owns a nearby building.
“That’s when I was like, ‘Oh, no. They’re here for us,’ ” said Ottomano, 29.
The van’s front and side doors on the passenger side opened as it rolled to a stop, Bassi said.
“I noticed that there were people in camo,” she said. “I threw my hands up and said, ‘We’re leaving, we’re leaving,’ like, ‘We’re not causing any trouble.’ ”
Fearful and unsure who the men were, Bassi and Ottomano said, they ran. The van followed them for half a block before making a U-turn to pursue Bassi, who had turned to run back toward the courthouse, video shows.
After the van caught up, two officers in camouflage tactical gear with “POLICE” patches across their chests approached Bassi. She turned to face them with her hands up. “I haven’t done anything at all,” she repeated, according to video by a witness.
The agents held Bassi’s arms behind her back and escorted her to the van. She was ordered to sit cross-legged on the floor of the vehicle — its middle seats removed — with her hands on her helmet and her eyes down, she said. They began to drive through downtown.
A pair of agents in the front and two more in the back were quiet, Bassi recalled.
“They never said who they were,” Bassi said. “I didn’t know if I was going to be seen again. I didn’t know what was going on. But I could tell that I was being arrested or detained or something.”
An officer asked whether Bassi, whose helmet covered her hair, was blond, she recalled.
“No,” she said.
The van made frequent turns for five to 10 minutes, until the agents stopped at a quiet intersection seven blocks from where Bassi had been picked up, she said.
Following officers’ orders, she climbed out and put her hands on the van’s roof, she said. An agent frisked her and asked her whether she had a laser pointer, she said. She told him she did not.
“You’re being detained because you match the description of somebody who committed a federal crime against an officer,” the agent said, according to Bassi, who is transgender.
As they removed her helmet and a cap underneath it, her brunette hair fell down.
“That’s not him,” an officer said, according to Bassi.
Another held up a grainy cellphone photo of the man they sought, Bassi recalled. It showed a person wearing a face covering and a gray bicycle helmet that bore little resemblance to her black helmet, she said.
(Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)
An agent told Bassi she was free to go but left her with a warning, she said: “You know, bro, we have cameras everywhere.”
Blocks away and 30 minutes after Bassi’s detention, Mark Pettibone was leaving the protest with a friend.
Pettibone, a 30-year-old Arizona native who completed a master’s degree at Portland’s Reed College in 2018, had made a point to attend the protests two to three nights a week while juggling a full-time job at a grocery store, he said.
That night, Pettibone had listened to Black Lives Matter speakers in the park across from the courthouse and tossed a Frisbee with friends, he said. But as Pettibone and his friend left, walking two blocks northwest of the courthouse on SW Main Street, a group of protesters warned that they had seen “unmarked vans kind of patrolling the perimeter,” Pettibone said.
At 2:33 a.m., security camera footage obtained by The Post shows Pettibone, wearing a beanie, glasses and a backpack, walking on SW Main Street toward SW 5th Avenue with his friend, Conner O’Shea.
Soon after, a van pulled up, and “four or five military-fatigues-clad people jumped out,” Pettibone said.
Pettibone ran.
“This is an unmarked van,” he said. “No one knows who these people are. … And I feared for my life.”
Security camera footage shows Pettibone running around the corner at SW Main and SW Broadway around 2:35 a.m., with the van following seconds later. He said he was detained shortly after. He knelt on the sidewalk, his hands above his head, and repeatedly asked the officers, “Why?” he said. There was no answer, he said.
Pettibone has previously shared his account with media outlets and members of Congress. But the security camera footage obtained by The Post is the first visual evidence showing the unmarked van pursuing him. It was provided by Portland’5 Centers for the Arts, which owns a theater across the street from where Pettibone was taken into custody.
Like Bassi, Pettibone said he was told to sit on the van floor as he held his hands on his head. An agent pulled his beanie cap down over his eyes, he said. Video from Multnomah County shows a van similar to the one that pursued Pettibone arriving near the courthouse at 2:37 a.m., about four blocks from where Pettibone was detained.
In the courthouse garage, Pettibone said, officers stood him against a wall and took photos from different angles. They escorted him to a holding area on an upper floor, he said, where an officer dumped out the contents of his bag without his consent.
“This is a whole lot of nothing,” Pettibone recalled the officer saying, as hand sanitizer and an inhaler spilled out.
Pettibone said officers put him in a cell and asked whether he would waive his right to remain silent; he said no. He was given no explanation for his detention, he said. He remained there for two hours, he said, until an officer told him he could leave.
Pettibone said the experience was “surreal.”
Word of federal agents’ actions quickly spread, sparking outrage.
The video of Bassi’s detention circulated on social media, gaining nearly 13 million views, although she has not disclosed her identity until now.
In response to the video at the time, U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a statement acknowledging its officers had taken an unnamed person into custody because they “had information indicating the person in the video was suspected of assaults against federal agents or destruction of federal property.”
Bassi said she did not assault an agent and did nothing illegal.
In Washington, Trump praised the federal response.
“Portland was very rough, and they called us in, and we did a good job, to put it mildly,” he said on July 15 at the White House, the day that Bassi and Pettibone had been taken into custody in the early morning. “Many people in jail right now.”
Officials in Oregon did not see it that way. The state’s attorney general, Ellen Rosenblum, sued the Department of Homeland Security on July 17. “We are today asking the federal court to stop the federal police from secretly stopping and forcibly grabbing Oregonians off our streets,” Rosenblum said at the time.
The suit accused federal officers of violating protesters’ rights and Oregon’s sovereignty. It also sought an order restraining federal agents from making arrests without warrants and requiring them to identify themselves and the reason for any detention. A federal judge denied the request, ruling that the state didn’t have a strong enough interest to sue on behalf of protesters.
(Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)
Federal agents were waiting for Tawasi as he drove home early on the morning of July 24 after a night of attending the protests at the courthouse. Tawasi, a Portland resident whose name is Native American, does not have a surname.
As Tawasi’s car approached the building where he lives at 2:33 a.m., an SUV carrying federal agents idled at a nearby loading dock, according to a phone recording of security video from a business that owns the property. The SUV pulled in front of Tawasi’s car, as other vehicles pulled in behind, lights flashing, video shows. Agents in plainclothes with guns drawn converged on Tawasi’s car and removed him, he said.
“We got you, Mr. Hickey,” an agent who identified himself as part of Homeland Security Investigations said, according to Tawasi.
“You definitely got me. But I am not Mr. Hickey. I have no idea who that is,” Tawasi, 44, said he responded.
Tawasi, a delivery driver who also works as a far-left video blogger, was at a loss. He had been attending protests two to three times a week, but he told The Post he is a pacifist.
During Tawasi’s arrest, agents informed him he was facing charges under a statute that prohibits releasing federal agents’ personal information, such as a Social Security number or home address, in order to threaten, intimidate or incite violence against them, he said.
Tawasi later learned the charge stemmed from his social media posts. He had published a photo on Twitter on July 12 of what he believed were two federal agents outside a Portland hotel. In subsequent posts, Tawasi called on protesters to make noise outside the hotel so that the “federal goons,” as he called the agents, could not sleep, and he urged hotel workers to deny the agents service.
“I wasn’t encouraging people to throw grenades or shoot tear gas or bullets or hit with batons,” Tawasi said in an interview. “I was encouraging people to, like, use air horns or sirens or just noise-making devices to, you know, just to disrupt the normal course of business.”
The protest Tawasi called for never materialized, but his posts prompted federal agents to monitor his social media accounts and eventually to surveil him at the protest on the night of his arrest, court records show.
For unexplained reasons, investigators initially believed Tawasi was a Canadian national with a name of Hickey, court records show. A then-sealed warrant secured on the day of his arrest identified him as Tawasi, “a/k/a Ronald Bernard Hickey,” according to court records.
Tawasi, a U.S. citizen, told The Post he has never been to Canada and didn’t know anyone with that name.
Records show Tawasi has been registered to vote under his name in several states where he has lived over the past two decades. His Oregon driver’s license lists his name as Tawasi, court records show. And his social media accounts all carry that name.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Oregon and DHS declined to comment on the case or why they identified him as Hickey.
After his arrest, Tawasi was held in the courthouse jail for more than 12 hours, until his first court appearance the following afternoon. During that hearing, the judge said prosecutors intended to charge Tawasi with illegally entering the United States, in addition to the charge based on his tweets, according to a transcript.
“Mr. Tawasi is alleged to be a citizen of Canada. He is also alleged to be here without permission, and he is also alleged to have a different name other than Tawasi; specifically, by the last name of Hickey,” said Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta.
A news release issued by the Department of Justice two days later also referred to Tawasi as a Canadian national with the alias.
The federal government soon began to backpedal. The illegal-reentry charge did not materialize, court records show. The Justice Department’s news release was corrected to say that Tawasi had been “incorrectly identified” as Hickey. And less than two weeks later, the charges of releasing agents’ personal information were dropped at federal prosecutors’ request “in the interest of justice,” court filings state.
Federal agents never returned Tawasi’s phone, though, he said.
He provided The Post with screen shots of Google tracking data that he had enabled on his Samsung Galaxy S6 showing the phone’s movements during the 32 hours after his arrest. Tawasi accessed the data by logging on to his Google account from a computer. It showed the phone was transported to several buildings in downtown Portland, including the federal courthouse and an Internal Revenue Service office before it was taken to a residential neighborhood in Lake Oswego, 10 miles south of Portland, the data shows.
Then the tracking data stopped, indicating the phone was no longer on or its tracking function was disabled.
Court records in Tawasi’s criminal case do not show a search warrant.
Spokesmen for DHS and the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment on the phone’s movement or to elaborate on whether investigators had obtained a warrant for it.
(Andrew Hinton for The Washington Post)
Hacker’s arrest on July 29 capped a month of unrest outside the courthouse.
Hacker, who completed a master’s degree in criminology and criminal justice from Portland State University this past spring, attended the protests most nights.
A self-described citizen-journalist, he records videos of protests and rallies to expose what he views as excessive police force and information “that contradicts police statements,” he said. He considers himself an anti-fascist but said he is not part of any group affiliated with antifa, the loosely knit far-left movement.
Hacker is well-known among activists along the political spectrum in Portland.
While recording a far-right rally in Portland in 2017, he was charged by a DHS officer with not obeying a lawful order to leave. Videos played at trial contradicted parts of an officer’s testimony, according to media reports. A federal judge later acquitted Hacker, court records show.
The conservative activist and journalist Andy Ngo sued Hacker and several other people earlier this year, alleging they harassed him over his unfavorable coverage of antifa. In the lawsuit, Ngo alleged Hacker grabbed his phone out of his hands during a confrontation at a gym last year. Hacker, who has not formally responded to the allegations in court, declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation.
In the hours before his arrest on July 29, Hacker streamed 77 minutes of video showing the protests and police response. He calmly narrated the night’s events, describing the actions of protesters and federal agents, according to a review of the footage.
Hacker was standing beside Jake Johnson, another citizen-journalist, in Lownsdale Square. The park was mostly quiet and empty, when both noticed the green laser coming from the balcony, they said. Hacker initially thought it was a prank intimidation tactic, he said. But Johnson quickly grew alarmed, video shows.
“Is this a joke?” Johnson shouted on a video as the laser targeted Hacker at 3:41 a.m. “This is, uh … not great.”
Two unmarked vans arrived seconds later, videos show.
“You have the wrong target,” Johnson yelled. “You have the wrong target.”
A Border Patrol agent in fatigues stepped out of a white, unmarked van and took Hacker into custody, video shows.
Hacker said he asked why he was being arrested, but the agent was silent.
In a video from a bystander, the agent can be seen taking Hacker’s phone and putting it atop the white van, as agents prepare to transport Hacker to the courthouse.
Inside the building, Hacker said, officers took cellphone photos of him. An agent placed a sticker on his right back shoulder, before taking a photo from behind, Hacker said. Hacker said he could not see the sticker.
Hacker was placed in a cell. He said agents asked to take his fingerprints, but he told them his fingers had been partially amputated, an injury suffered during a traffic accident years ago. Agents then asked to take a DNA swab from his cheek, and he allowed that, he said.
Hacker asked two more times why he was under arrest, he said.
“We’re working on it,” he said he was told.
More than an hour passed before an agent opened the cell and escorted Hacker toward a building exit. “We’ve done an investigation, determined you’ve committed no crime,” he said the agent told him.
Security camera footage shows Hacker emerging from the courthouse at 5:09 a.m.
Only after he was on the street, he said, did he realize his Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus cellphone — on which he had no tracking apps enabled — was missing.
He said his cellphone still has not been returned.
(Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)
All four people said their experiences linger with them, causing anxiety, paranoia and fear.
“I can’t be alone,” Bassi said.
Pettibone, who sued Trump and DHS officials late last month, has stopped going to the protests as frequently. “It makes you more paranoid,” he said.
“Now, when I’m driving somewhere, I don’t just take it for granted that I’m going to be able to get home,” Tawasi said.
Hacker continues to document protests but has become more skittish. “There’s that constant fear around keeping, you know, extra distance from what’s going on,” he said.
Portland becomes the first U.S. city to ban companies using facial recognition software on customers after the mayor said it could be used for surveillance on protesters
Portland’s city council also voted to ban local government bureaus from acquiring or using the controversial surveillance technology
Mayor Ted Wheeler expressed concern that the technology would be used to monitor protests
City council commissioners voted unanimously for the ban
The ban begins immediately in the Portland city government
Published: 22:07 EDT, 9 September 2020 | Updated: 08:52 EDT, 10 September 2020
Portland on Wednesday voted in favor of the first-ever ban in the United States on private entities, such as restaurants and retail stores, from using facial recognition technology in public places in the city.
Portland’s city council also voted to ban local government bureaus from acquiring or using the controversial surveillance technology. City council commissioners voted unanimously for the ban, CNN Business reports.
The ban begins immediately in the Portland city government and on January 1 for private uses not allowed under the rule.
Portland city council commissioners voted unanimously to ban the use of facial recognition technology (stock)
Several U.S. cities, including San Francisco and Oakland, have previously banned government use of facial recognition.
Facial recognition software can identify individuals in photos and videos based on a database of known subjects.
The technology has won over businesses and police in the last few years despite objections from those who say it invades people’s privacy and exacerbates racial and gender biases.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler expressed concern that the technology would be used to monitor protests, which the city has seen since the death of George Floyd in May.
‘Technology exists to make our lives easier, not for public and private entities to use as a weapon against the very citizens they serve and accommodate,’ he said.
The American Civil Liberties Union said it hoped the passage of the legislation in Portland would spur efforts to ban the use of such surveillance technology across the state of Oregon.
They added that the prohibiting of the technology ‘is necessary and prudent to protect the interests, privacy, and safety of individuals and our communities.’
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler expressed concern that the technology would be used to monitor protests. BLM protesters are seen clashing with Proud Boys supporters in Oregon City over the weekend
Protests have been raging in Portland since the death of George Floyd in police custody in May
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An unprecedented orange glow blanketed the Bay Area on Wednesday as northern California wildfires continued to burn.
Smoke blown down from the fires and trapped in the marine layer cast an almost nighttime-like pall Wednesday as street lamps glowed and cars drove with headlights on all day.
In San Francisco, people walked or rode bikes along the Embarcadero, their tiny headlamps emanating a blue glow contrasting with the warmer colors surrounding them and reflecting on the water near the Bay Bridge. Many were out with phones or cameras, documenting the unusual natural phenomenon.
Across California, as many as 14,000 firefighters are battling blazes in nearly every part of state. At least 2.5 million acres have burned here so far this year — nearly 20 times the land that burned last year and already more than the previous record set in 2018.
Meteorologists expect the smoke to ebb and flow for the foreseeable future as at least 28 major fires continue to burn across the state.
Staff reporters Nico Savage and Rick Hurd contributed to this report.
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