(NewsNation) — Oregon’s attorney general says his state is amending its lawsuit to add California as a complainant after news broke Sunday that President Trump would try to send 300 California National Guard troops to Portland.
Trump’s strategy comes after a federal judge on Saturday blocked his administration, at least temporarily, from deploying Oregon’s National Guard to Portland.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut in Portland is the latest setback for Trump, a Republican, as he seeks to dispatch the military to cities he describes as lawless over the objections of their Democratic leaders.
“Simply put, you just have the Trump administration disagreeing with the judge’s orders,” Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, a Democrat, told “NewsNation Prime” on Sunday.
He said Trump was acting childish in pursuing the California workaround. “This is wild, right? None of us would ever do what the president did under these circumstances.”
Trump has characterized both Portland and Chicago as cities rife with crime and unrest, calling the former a “war zone” and suggesting apocalyptic force was needed to quell problems in the latter. Since the start of his second term, the Republican has sent or talked about sending troops to 10 cities.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland has recently been the site of nightly protests by people opposed to Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who first announced Trump’s attempt to tap his state’s National Guard for Oregon, vowed to fight the move.
“The commander-in-chief is using the U.S. military as a political weapon against American citizens,” Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement. “We will take this fight to court, but the public cannot stay silent in the face of such reckless and authoritarian conduct by the president of the United States.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.