President Donald Trump said Thursday he was calling off plans for a federal deployment to San Francisco after being persuaded by “friends” in the tech industry that a “surge” wasn’t necessary.
Trump credited Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of chipmaker Nvidia, and Salesforce founder Marc Benioff, a mainstay of San Francisco politics, for his decision.
“Great people like Jensen Huang, Marc Benioff, and others have called saying that the future of San Francisco is great,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Benioff stunned the city’s progressive establishment and received backlash after saying earlier this month that he supported Trump’s plans for a federal deployment. Benioff apologized for his comment, which he claimed came from “an abundance of caution” for his company’s annual conference held in the city.
“Having listened closely to my fellow San Franciscans and our local officials, I do not believe the National Guard is needed to address safety in San Francisco,” he said Friday.
Trump said in a Truth Social post that he also spoke with Democratic San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, who told him the city was making “substantial progress” on combating crime and asked to be given “a chance” to handle the issue locally.
“I told him I think he is making a mistake, because we can do it much faster, and remove the criminals that the Law does not permit him to remove,” Trump added. “I told him, ‘It’s an easier process if we do it, faster, stronger, and safer but, let’s see how you do?’ The people of San Francisco have come together on fighting Crime, especially since we began to take charge of that very nasty subject. Great people like Jensen Huang, Marc Benioff, and others have called saying that the future of San Francisco is great. They want to give it a ‘shot.’ Therefore, we will not surge San Francisco on Saturday. Stay tuned!”
Trump’s reversal marks a major political win for Lurie, who is in his first term and has tried to stay out of political fights with the administration. Other California officials, such as Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), have been quick to fire back at Trump every chance they get. Lurie, however, has very rarely mentioned the president and has not commented on his policies. He only began after Trump directed them at San Francisco.
“The president told me clearly that he was calling off any plans for a federal deployment in San Francisco,” Lurie said in a statement released a few minutes before Trump’s. “Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem reaffirmed that direction in our conversation this morning.”
Lurie added that he told Trump, “San Francisco is on the rise. Visitors are coming back, buildings are getting leased and purchased, and workers are coming back to the office.”
He added that while he would welcome partnerships with the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and U.S. attorney “to get drugs and drug dealers off our streets,” “having the military and militarized immigration enforcement in our city will hinder our recovery.”
Pelosi called Trump’s reversal a testament to Lurie’s leadership.
“Mayor Daniel Lurie has demonstrated exceptional leadership in his steadfast commitment to the safety and well-being of San Franciscans,” she said. “In his handling of a potential federal deployment in our city that resulted in the President calling off the operation, Mayor Lurie has underscored that public safety must be driven by local priorities, respectful of our values and communities.”
Lurie’s announcement came just hours after protesters clashed with federal agents arriving at Coast Guard Station in Alameda.
