Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler on protests, federal officers and reelection campaign

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler was once overheard saying he couldn't wait for the next 24 months to be over, and the end of his first term as mayor. That was in November 2018 after a health coalition forum where he was heckled. Fast forward to today and being disrupted during a speech seems minor. Wheeler faces a global pandemic, an economic crisis rivaled only by the Great Depression, and nightly civil unrest on the streets following the killing of George Floyd. But now, he said he has no doubt he wants to be Portland's mayor for another four years. "This is a leadership moment," Wheeler said. "This is a very tough time, being the mayor of the city of Portland is never particularly easy, but it is a privilege. Being the mayor of this city has meaning." Wheeler joined host Laural Porter on this this week's episode of KGW's Straight Talk. He acknowledged the myriad of challenges facing the city, but called it a transformational period in history. "We have an opportunity as a community and as individuals to write that history that decades from now, people will look back on as being a really important inflection period in our city and nation's history," he said.