Donald Trump has called off plans for a "surge" of federal officers into San Francisco. All it took was a uniquely savvy mayor and a handful of billionaires.
The surge was initially planned for Saturday, October 25. Trump said it was needed to combat rising crime in the city, which he’s previously described as having “gone to hell.”
Desperate to avoid the situations in Portland, D.C., and Chicago, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie began calling up some of the city’s most influential titans, including those who have good relationships with Trump. Open AI chief executive Sam Altman, Salesforce head Marc Benioff, venture capitalist Ron Conway, and Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang all worked the phones to convince the president to hold off. They succeeded.
“I got a great call from some incredible people, some friends of mine, very successful people,” Trump said Thursday.
After hearing about the efforts to combat crime in San Francisco, “I told the mayor, I love what you’re doing, I respect it, and I respect the people that are doing it,” said Trump.
Lurie told the president that he’s in favor of a “continued partnership” with federal agencies to get drugs off the city’s streets. However, “having the military and militarized immigration enforcement in our city will hinder our recovery,” Lurie said.
The mayor’s pragmatic, all-hands-on-deck approach is having an impact beyond his city. On Thursday, the Associated Press reports, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement informed Alameda County Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez that an ICE operation had been called off for the entire Bay Area and its nine counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma.
The Bay Area stand-down is an impressive win for Lurie, who was elected to office for the first time ever last year. But not everyone is impressed. The mayor’s openness to coordinating with federal law enforcement is still “a dangerous invitation to a fascist administration,” said San Francisco Supervisor Jackie Fielder.
“We cannot trust Trump,” added Supervisor Connie Chan.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson noted that Lurie’s playbook probably can’t be replicated elsewhere. It wasn’t just the CEOs who helped persuade Trump — it was the affluent Levi Strauss heir Lurie himself.
“If the only way in which you can communicate with this president is to be a billionaire, that leaves out the vast, vast majority of everyday people,” said Johnson.
Trump’s reversal also didn’t stop demonstrations from taking place on Thursday. SF Gate reports that thousands of protesters rallied across the Bay Area to protest Trump’s threats of a federal surge.