Satire Site Babylon Bee Roasts Ted Wheeler: ‘Proud Mayor Lets His Entire City Burn To The Ground Just To Make Trump Look Bad’

Satire Site Babylon Bee ran a satirical article on Monday roasting Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler for his recent handling of riots in his city. The title of the piece was, “Proud Mayor Lets His Entire City Burn To The Ground Just To Make Trump Look Bad.”

From the Babylon Bee:

In an effort to prevent the reelection of sitting President Donald Trump, Mayor Ted Wheeler is encouraging citizens to raze their city to the ground. They hope that by desolating the entire city and reducing it to nothing more than smoking heaps of ash, that Trump won’t stand a chance in 2020. 

“This is a small price to pay, if it means getting literally Hitler out of office,” said Mayor Ted Wheeler pouring gasoline throughout the city. “Now burn those buildings down! Burn them all!”

In response to the violence, the president has offered to send support to restore the peace to the city. Instead of giving Trump the political win he craves, Mayor Wheeler has come up with a solution of his own. “You can’t restore law and order to a city if there is no city left!”

Many questioned Mayor Wheeler’s commitment to the cause until he struck a match and set his own home ablaze. “In the end, this will all be worth it. Homes can be rebuilt, but a chance at hurting Trump’s poll numbers is priceless!”

So far there have been no signs of these actions negatively affecting Trump’s re-election chances. Confusingly, some polls even show Trump gaining ground. 

The satire article was likely in response to statements made on Sunday by Mayor Wheeler, who said it is President Trump who “created the hate” following a shooting at a protest that left one person dead.

From CNN:

Speaking at a news conference, Mayor Ted Wheeler asked, “Do you seriously wonder, Mr. President, why this is the first time in decades that America has seen this level of violence?”

“It’s you who have created the hate and the division. It’s you who have not found a way to say the names of Black people killed by police officers even as people in law enforcement have. And it’s you who claimed that White supremacists are good people,” he continued. “Your campaign of fear is as anti-democratic as anything you’ve done to create hate and vitriol in our beautiful country.”

For more than 90 consecutive nights, protesters in Portland have gathered against police brutality and racial injustice. The protests were spurred by the killing of George Floyd in May and gained steam after last weekend’s police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin.

Addressing Trump personally, Wheeler lamented that “for four years we’ve had to live with you and your racist attacks on Black people.””We learned early about your sexist attitudes toward women.

We’ve had to endure clips of you mocking a disabled man. We’ve had to listen to your anti-democratic attacks on journalists. We’ve read your tweets slamming private citizens to the point of receiving death threats, and we’ve listened to your attacks on immigrants,” he said.

“We’ve listened to you label Mexicans ‘rapists.’ We’ve heard you say that John McCain wasn’t a hero because he was a prisoner of war. And now, you’re attacking Democratic mayors and the very institutions of Democracy that have served this nation well since its founding.”

Wheeler’s message provoked a string of tweets from the President Sunday afternoon, who denounced the mayor as “wacky.””Portland will never recover with a fool for a Mayor,” Trump said.

“He tried mixing with the Agitators and Anarchists and they mocked him. He would like to blame me and the Federal Government for going in, but he hasn’t seen anything yet. We have only been there with a small group to defend our U.S. Courthouse, because he couldn’t do it.”

Leaning on his campaign mantle, Trump added, “The people of Portland, like all other cities & parts of our great Country, want Law & Order.”

The tweets marked an immediate rebuke of Wheeler’s news conference plea to the President to let him, as mayor, handle the unrest.

“President Trump, you bring no peace. You bring no respect to our Democracy. You, Mr. President, need to do your job as the leader of this nation and I, Mr. President, will do my job as the mayor of this city,” he said.

“And we will both be held accountable, as we should.”

Wheeler is now apparently moving from his condo after rioters targeted his home. Wheeler reportedly wrote to the other residents of his building, “I want to express my sincere apologies for the damage to our home and the fear that you are experiencing due to my position.”