London Breed ran San Francisco into the ground for six years.
Now a new Democrat is begging Trump not to step in.
Trump heard him out – and gave Mayor Daniel Lurie exactly one warning before the federal government does what San Francisco never could.
The City That Progressives Destroyed
San Francisco was once the crown jewel of the American West.
Then progressives got their hands on it.
For a decade, radical leftist politicians ran the Tenderloin into an open-air drug market while district attorney Chesa Boudin decriminalized public camping, drug use, and theft.
Fentanyl killed 810 San Franciscans in a single year – 2023 – the highest toll ever recorded.
Voters finally snapped.
In 2024, San Francisco threw out London Breed and elected Lurie, a moderate Democrat who ran on a fentanyl state of emergency and a law-and-order platform the city's left wing despised.
The progressives' nonprofit machine – the same network that funneled hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into programs that kept people on the streets instead of getting them off drugs – fought him every step of the way.
Lurie's board passed his emergency fentanyl legislation 10-1 anyway.
Trump Picked Up the Phone
At Thursday's Cabinet meeting, Trump told his secretaries he'd spoken directly with Lurie.
The message was simple.
"I spoke to him," Trump said. "He just wants to have a chance. And I said, 'We'll give you a chance, but we can solve it very quickly.'"
https://twitter.com/abc7newsbayarea/status/2037374111597391973?s=20
Trump made clear what "very quickly" means in practice.
The federal government can remove criminal illegal aliens – the drug dealers and murderers Trump described to his Cabinet – and deport them back to the countries from which they came.
"He can't take people out from the city and bring them back to the country from where they came," Trump said of Lurie. "We do things that they can't do."
That's the difference between a mayor working inside a broken sanctuary city structure and a federal government that answers to no city council.
Neighbors for a Better San Francisco – a moderate Democrat group – raised $10 million to keep progressives off the ballot this cycle, terrified the left will claw back control and undo everything the city has rebuilt.
The same progressive network that created the crisis is already organizing to recapture city hall, arguing Lurie's crackdowns aren't working.
They're lying.
Homicides in San Francisco are down 45% from 2019 levels.
Car break-ins – the crime that turned the city into a national punchline – sit at their lowest mark in 22 years.
It happened because voters threw the progressives out, elected a law-and-order mayor, and Trump made clear that federal resources were available if San Francisco got serious.
Why Trump's Warning Matters
Every Democrat-run city that resisted Trump – Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis – eventually faced a harder federal reckoning than if they'd cooperated.
https://twitter.com/LarryAdkin/status/2037519777275515250?s=20
Minneapolis got Operation Metro Surge: 3,000 federal agents, two fatal shootings, and months of chaos before Tom Homan pulled back the operation.
Lurie knows what happens to mayors who say no.
"We can make it a lot safer than it is," Trump said. "A great city, was a great city – could quickly become a great city again."
The operative word is "could."
San Francisco's moderate revolution is real – the voters proved it, the $10 million war chest proves it, and Lurie's willingness to call Trump directly proves it.
But Trump's message to the Cabinet was clear: San Francisco gets its chance, and the clock is running.
Sources:
- Joshua Q. Nelson, "Trump praises San Francisco mayor for 'trying very hard' to improve city," Fox News, March 26, 2026.
- "How San Francisco's Progressive Policies Made the Homelessness Crisis Worse," Heritage Foundation.
- "Crime is Down in San Francisco," Governor of California, October 15, 2025.
- "Ten years of fentanyl: How the deadly drug still has San Francisco in its grip," SF Standard, February 5, 2026.
- "Daniel Lurie takes control of SF's fentanyl crisis," SF Standard, February 4, 2025.
- James Comer, "Democrat Governors Are Prioritizing the Protection of Criminal Illegal Aliens," House Oversight Committee, June 12, 2025.
- "San Francisco's Revolt of the Center," American Affairs Journal, November 20, 2025.
