Trump Praises SF Mayor Lurie, Threatens Federal Intervention on Crime

Federal agents staged in Alameda but never crossed into San Francisco last October. Thursday, President Donald Trump made clear that restraint has limits.

At a White House cabinet meeting, Trump renewed his threat to deploy federal forces to San Francisco, praising Mayor Daniel Lurie's crime-fighting efforts in the same breath he used to undercut them. "He's trying very hard, but we could do it much more effectively because he can't do what we do," Trump said.

The meeting had begun with discussion of the war in Iran before pivoting to what Trump described as Democrat-run cities' handling of illegal immigration and crime. Trump acknowledged speaking directly with Lurie, who asked for more time. "He just wants to have a chance. And I said, 'We'll give you a chance, but we can solve it very quickly,'" Trump said. He also recounted Bay Area tech CEOs lobbying him last fall not to send in troops, a request he ultimately honored after federal agents had already been positioned across the bay in Alameda.

Trump argued the core limitation is legal, not logistical: local officials cannot remove noncitizens and return them to their home countries, he said, invoking a figure of 11,888 murders attributed to people previously held in prisons. "We do things that they can't do," he said. San Francisco, he added, "was a great city" that "could quickly become a great city again."

Lurie's office pushed back with its own numbers. In a statement provided to ABC7 Eyewitness News, the mayor's team said crime is down 30 percent in San Francisco, encampments are at record lows, and the city is "on the rise." "Public safety is my number one priority, and we are going to stay laser focused on keeping our streets safe and clean," the statement read. Reported crime dropped to historic lows in most of the city last year, according to available data.

Lurie, who defeated incumbent London Breed in 2024 as part of a broader moderate shift in city leadership, has navigated an unusual political dynamic since taking office: a Democratic mayor in a progressive city receiving conditional approval from a White House that has repeatedly threatened to override local governance on immigration and public safety. Trump's Thursday remarks kept that pressure alive, even while offering what amounted to a public compliment. "I know they have a mayor who's trying very hard. He's a Democrat, but he's trying very hard," Trump said in remarks aired by CNN.

Whether Thursday's comments translate into renewed deployment plans or remain rhetorical leverage may depend on how quickly Lurie's crime numbers continue to move.