National news was focused on Oregon in 2025 as President Donald Trump tried to send National Guard troops to Portland to quell protests at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building on the city’s South Waterfront. (Those protests were largely peaceful, despite the president’s statements to the contrary.) After a lot of legal back-and-forth, the Supreme Court weighed in and the president quietly recalled troops from Portland, Chicago and Los Angeles. The Trump Administration recently dropped its appeal of a decision made by a federal judge in Oregon that blocked the president from deploying National Guard Troops to Portland. But the president has made statements implying that he intends to send troops back to Portland and other cities at some point, saying he could still use the Insurrection Act to do so. 

Throughout this whole saga, OPB has been reporting and adding context to a story that is both local and national. We learned a lot in the process — about the role of the courts in relation to the executive branch, about the difference between what’s actually happening on the ground, government narratives and public perception, and about the different kinds of protesters and the motivations for dissent. On this episode of “The Evergreen,” we break down some of that work with three smart journalists who’ve been in the thick of it: OPB criminal justice and legal affairs reporter Conrad Wilson, OPB public safety reporter Troy Brynelson and the editor for OPB’s public safety and health team, Michelle Wiley. 

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