President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he was canceling plans to send federal troops to San Francisco after talking with the city's mayor.
“The federal government was preparing to 'surge' San Francisco, California, on Saturday, but my friends who live in the area called last night and asked me not to continue the surge because Mayor Daniel Lurie has made significant progress,” Trump said in a tweet.
He added that among the “friends” who asked Trump to delay the deployment of the National Guard to San Francisco were Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.
“The people of San Francisco have come together to fight crime, especially since we began to take responsibility for this very unpleasant topic. Great people like Jensen Huang, Marc Benioff and others have called and said that the future of San Francisco is bright. They want to give it a shot. So we will not storm San Francisco on Saturday,” the president wrote.
In a separate statement, Lurie confirmed he spoke with Trump last night, saying, “I told him the same thing I told our residents: San Francisco is on the rise.”
“We have work to do and would welcome continued partnerships with the FBI, DEA, ATF and the US Attorney to get drugs and drug dealers off our streets, but the presence of military and paramilitary immigration enforcement in our city will hinder our recovery,” the mayor added. “We appreciate that the president understands that we are a global technology hub and when San Francisco is strong, our country is strong.”
Lurie also said he spoke with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday and she confirmed the president was canceling plans for a federal deployment to San Francisco.
