Trump calls off federal deployment plans for San Francisco

President Trump said he’s backing off a planned surge of federal agents into San Francisco after speaking with Democratic Mayor Daniel Lurie.

Mr. Trump said friends of his said Mr. Lurie was “making substantial progress” on crime in the city and asked him not to send agents.

“I spoke to Mayor Lurie last night and he asked, very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn it around. 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,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday. “I told him, ‘It’s an easier process if we do it, faster, stronger, and safer but, let’s see how you do?’”

Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff were two of the “great people” who called to say, “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!” Mr. Trump wrote.

Mr. Lurie said he spoke with Mr. Trump by phone late Wednesday and told him that “San Francisco is on the rise.”

“In that conversation, the president told me clearly that he was calling off any plans for a federal deployment in San Francisco,” the mayor said in a statement. “Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem reaffirmed that direction in our conversation this morning.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents had already begun arriving, which sparked protests in the Bay Area at the Coast Guard Base in Alameda. Flash-bang grenades were used to get the vehicles through the crowds of protesters.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president’s statement proves he “is willing to work with anyone across the aisle, across the country, to do the right thing and clean up America’s cities.”

“He is genuinely interested in this effort to make our streets safer, to make our cities safe and clean again, and he heard from the mayor last night, who told him that he is going to earnestly try to make his city better on his own,” she said. “The president heard him out. He said, ‘Okay, I’ll give you a chance. We’ll be watching. And if you need us, we are here. And if I feel as though you continue to fail your citizens, the federal government may have to step in, but we’ll continue to watch San Francisco, and that law enforcement operation has now been paused.’”

The president has repeatedly threatened to send troops to San Francisco, like he has to the District of Columbia, Memphis, Los Angeles, Portland and Chicago.