President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he’s casting his focus on San Francisco as one of the next cities on his list of places where he’s looking to deploy the National Guard.
In a meeting at the White House with FBI Director Kash Patel, Trump called San Francisco “a mess” and said he is encouraging his administration to start looking at the city for future federal law enforcement interventions.
Democratic representatives for San Francisco quickly blasted Trump’s remarks.
“San Francisco neither needs nor wants Trump’s personal army on our streets. Contrary to Trump’s lie, no ‘government officials’ here have requested federal occupation,” Sen. Scott Wiener posted on the social media platform X. “We don’t need Trump’s authoritarian crackdown in our city. Bottom line: Stay the hell out of San Francisco.”
The president’s comments arrived shortly after city officials on Wednesday morning pushed back against recent comments by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Trump, suggesting the president should send the National Guard to San Francisco and touting an increase in local law enforcement officers.
“It certainly undermines the work that we’ve been doing,” District Attorney Brooke Jenkins told reporters when asked about Benioff’s comments. “Anytime somebody of the level of influence that he has speaks in that way — who we know has a voice with the [Trump] administration — is concerning.”
Jenkins joined Mayor Daniel Lurie on Wednesday morning in announcing the first net growth in the number of police officers in the city since 2020. Speaking at the city’s police academy, she said Benioff’s idea of bringing federal troops to San Francisco, published in an interview with The New York Times last week, was unnecessary and would put local policing efforts at greater risk.
A fourth-generation San Franciscan, Benioff came under fire this week from city supervisors and other officials for praising Trump, supporting deploying federal troops in San Francisco and calling the city to “refund” the police.
But crime rates in San Francisco are actually lower than they have been in years, and both the police budget and force have grown despite a major budget deficit this year that forced the city to cut millions of dollars from other departments.
Benioff’s comments came just before the kickoff of Salesforce’s massive conference, called Dreamforce, happening this week in San Francisco. To prepare for the temporary influx of people downtown, California Highway Patrol has sent in 200 extra officers.
The city is shy about 500 officers from recommended staffing levels, according to the Police Department, and Benioff blasted the city for failing to maintain the same levels of policing outside of the conference week. However, it’s common during any major event for the city to ramp up policing and for private event holders to pay for extra security costs.
Speaking at the police academy, Lurie did not mention Trump’s name on Wednesday, staying consistent with his communication strategy since assuming office in January to avoid calling out the president. He instead emphasized the city’s declining crime rates and growing police force as evidence that the National Guard is not needed in San Francisco.
“We have seen crime go down in Union Square 40%. Crime citywide is down 30%. We are at 70-year lows when it comes to homicides. Car break-ins are at 22-year lows,” Lurie said. “I am clear-eyed about the challenges that we have. We have a lot of work to do. But I trust our local law enforcement.”
Across San Francisco, there has been a 45% decrease in homicides and 40% decrease in robberies since 2019, according to data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association, a professional organization of police executives.
Lurie said he spoke to the Salesforce CEO after his comments snowballed over the weekend, but declined to go into detail about their conversation.
“I’m not trying to change those people’s minds,” the mayor told reporters on Wednesday. “They’re entitled to their own opinions, but they’re not entitled to their own facts.”
Benioff, who is a major donor to San Francisco, has since softened his stance, saying his intention was to support increased public safety in the city.
“San Francisco’s public safety challenges are real and complex, and we need to continue exploring every possible pathway to create a safer city for everyone,” Benioff said in a post on X following his interview with the Times.
Trump recently called out San Francisco among the list of Democratic cities he said the federal government and military would crack down on, in what he called an effort to fight enemies “from within.”
Jenkins told reporters that decisions to deploy federal troops in cities like Chicago have escalated violence and tensions on the ground.
“We just cannot afford to have what is happening [in Chicago] go on here,” Jenkins said. “It is not promoting law and order. It is not promoting safety. It is promoting chaos, terror and fear,” she said.
San Francisco is a sanctuary city, meaning that local law enforcement cannot aid federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But local law enforcement also cannot interfere with National Guard troops or ICE agents on the ground, Jenkins said, unless they witness any violence or crime being committed.
“This is a tough space, particularly for our police and our Sheriff’s Department to be in, because they will see things that maybe they morally want to address, but cannot legally,” Jenkins said.
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