Photo: Alamy
President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that San Francisco may be the next city to receive National Guard troops and federal agents as part of his nationwide crime and immigration enforcement efforts.
“We have great support in San Francisco,” President Trump told FBI Director Kash Patel during a joint press briefing. “So I would like to recommend that for inclusion, maybe in your next group.”
The president said the city was once thriving but has deteriorated in recent years.
“I’m going to be strongly recommending at the request of government officials, which is always nice, that you start looking at San Francisco,” he said. “I think we can make San Francisco — one of our great cities 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and now it’s a mess.”
The president’s remarks quickly led to strong reactions from California Democrats. Gov. Gavin Newsom spokeswoman Diana Crofts-Pelayo said that California would resist any actions by the National Guard in the state.
“California will resist any effort by Donald Trump to militarize another American city for his own vanity and deranged fantasies,” Crofts-Pelayo said. “California doesn’t want or need the National Guard to police its streets. In this state, we take care of our own communities — unlike Trump who can’t even pay the soldiers under his command.”
Democratic State Senator Scott Wiener, whose district covers the city, also spoke against the idea in a post to X: “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. We don’t need Trump’s authoritarian crackdown in our city. Bottom line: Stay the hell out of San Francisco.”
Over the past several months, the president has deployed National Guard units to Washington, D.C., Memphis, Chicago, Portland and Los Angeles as part of a sweeping crackdown on violent crime. He previously said he was considering sending troops to New Orleans due to its high crime rate, a move supported by Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry.
The president has also reportedly floated deploying troops to Baltimore or New York if local leaders do not take stronger action against crime.