Did a Sheriff in Oregon Endorse Donald Trump?

No.

By
14

President Trump claimed during Tuesday’s debate that “Portland, the sheriff just came out today and he said, ‘I support President Trump.’”

“Sheriff” is a title typically held by county-level law enforcement officers, and Portland is located in Multnomah County, Oregon. Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese, however, denies the claim. Reese tweeted during the debate that he has “never supported Donald Trump and will never support him.”

Reese’s tweet and the lack of any prior evidence that he supported Trump make this a pretty open and shut case: no, the sheriff of the Portland area has not endorsed Trump.

If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com.

This fact check is available at IFCN’s 2020 U.S. Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here for more.

14
By
Comments (14)
Join The Dispatch to participate in the comments.
 
  1. Avatar photo
    T. McCloud Wilson

    Was it, like "THE sheriff"... or just, like, you know, "a sheriff"?

    Collapse
  2. John Cheyney

    I am somewhat embarrassed to admit I keep coming back to this thread. I am completely enthralled by the gymnastics that people here are going to through to support what the President said.

    Maybe it was some other Portland,

    Maybe he got it confused with Kenosha, Wisconsin, which is on the other side of the country. Probably happens all the time. People fly to Kenosha for a vacation and find themselves in Oregon.

    Maybe it was some other Sheriff in a place that sounds like it, or is near there, or wears the same color hat.

    It's 20 hours after the debate. If any Sheriff in any Portland had endorsed President Trump yesterday his people would have that out in the media.

    And don't try some kind of BothSideIsm about how many mistakes Biden made. Your boy blew it, and you know it. Part of being an adult is admitting your mistakes and learning from them.

    Collapse
    1. P Satter

      John, there really only seems to be one comment below that is supportive. Perhaps that one comment somehow colored your interpretation of everyone else's comments? Which led to your broadly scolding all of us for supporting Trump when that was simply not the case.

      The rest, like myself, seem to be trying to logically figure out the psychological connection only to such a directly false statement that came out of the blue-- not supporting him at all.

      I can assure you, in the strongest of terms, he is not "my boy."

      Collapse
    2. Avatar photo
      Jonathan McAnulty

      Maybe we are reading different comments. I am not noticing anyone trying hard to defend the President. If anything, I read most of the comments the other way - ribbing Trump in abstentia.

      Collapse
      1. John Cheyney

        Maybe there is some subtlety that I missed but they sure seem serious to me.

        Collapse
        1. Avatar photo
          Farhall

          If you're perchance referring to my comment, I didn't think I need to spell it out, but I would rather agree that confusing Kenosha and Portland, given the distance I called out between them, is unlikely for an average person. Hence why I noted the significant distance between the two.

          Call it morbid curiosity, but it's interesting to see how exactly the sausage is made. I'm reasonably convinced that Trump doesn't think he's lying precisely because he's, shall we say, appropriating facts from different places to create new and wholly original facts.

          What enthralls me, on the other hand, is the "opinion sorting" if you will that needs to happen. As a gay, silicon valley transplant from Europe, I'd personally classify myself as "probably not on the same planet as Trump", let alone supporting or even excusing him. But by virtue of my comment not having an explicit denial of him, it's possible to read it as support and/or excuses for him. To me this shows the unfortunate amount of distrust that has managed to make its way in to the national conversation.

          Collapse
        2. Avatar photo
          Jonathan McAnulty

          My final tongue-in-cheek question was whether it was a dream of his or if perhaps it was (riffing off his own critique of Biden) some sort of mental decline. Not super serious suggestions.

          Collapse
        3. P Satter

          Speaking only for myself, I was replying to one other commenter who also seemed to be trying to figure out "where he got his wires crossed." A point of curiosity, *not* a defense. Not many can mix up Portland (my hometown) and Kenosha which I am sure is a lovely place, but quite far away ;-)

          Collapse
  3. Avatar photo
    BrandonAlleman

    Seems more plausible that it could have been the Clackamas County Sheriff just south of Portland and more conservative but I can find no evidence of that either.

    Collapse
  4. Avatar photo
    BrettH

    Nice job. The guy’s propensity for complete BS is sometimes, like this occasion, hilarious.

    Collapse
  5. Avatar photo
    Earl King

    Alec did you call the Trump campaign for clarification? Perhaps it was a different Portland....ME, CT have Portlands. No denying however Trump has picked up lots of police support.

    Collapse
  6. Avatar photo
    Jonathan McAnulty

    As regards fact checks, this one seems like it was an easy slow pitch what with the Sheriff in question answering it himself in real time.

    To make it a bit harder... Did any Sheriff come out yesterday morning explicitly for Trump? The claim was not just that it was a certain sheriff, but that it was a public endorsement of the sort that others would have seen and that it was specifically made yesterday morning. Is this Trump repeating a dream he had, or should we start questioning his recall abilities?

    Collapse
    1. Avatar photo
      Farhall

      This was a great question. So I did a search for any sheriff that had endorsed Trump prior to the debate, and I did find one. In the USA today, on Saturday, September 26, the Kenosha County sheriff endorsed Trump.

      Now it bears noting that Kenosha County is almost 2,000 miles away from Portland, being located in Wisconsin. So it is true that Trump was endorsed by a sheriff. It wasn't on the day of the debate, and it wasn't anywhere near Oregon, though.

      Collapse
      1. P Satter

        I was wondering the same thing, if he mixed up Kenosha and Portland, due perhaps to both having had....protests? Living in a suburb of Portland (OR), knew it definitely was not here.

        Collapse