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Trump Credits His Tech Buddies for Decision to Back Off San Francisco

Trump Credits His Tech Buddies for Decision to Back Off San Francisco

By Kim Browne

Culture

Donald Trump has been convinced not to deploy federal troops to the city of San Francisco, as he has in other cities across the country.

In a Truth Social post Thursday afternoon, Trump wrote that he was persuaded by a phone call with San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and conversations with tech industry leaders such as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff.

“They want to give it a ‘shot.’ Therefore, we will not surge San Francisco on Saturday. Stay tuned!” Trump’s post read.

Donald J. Trump President of the United States The Federal Government was preparing to “surge” San Francisco, California, on Saturday, but friends of mine who live in the area called last night to ask me not to go forward with the surge in that the Mayor, Daniel Lurie, was making substantial progress. I spoke to Mayor Lurie last night and he asked, very nicely, that I give him a chance to see if he can turn it around. I told him I think he is making a mistake, because we can do it much faster, and remove the criminals that the Law does not permit him to remove. I told him, “It’s an easier process if we do it, faster, stronger, and safer but, let’s see how you do?” The people of San Francisco have come together on fighting Crime, especially since we began to take charge of that very nasty subject. Great people like Jensen Huang, Marc Benioff, and others have called saying that the future of San Francisco is great. They want to give it a “shot.” Therefore, we will not surge San Francisco on Saturday. Stay tuned!

The post confirms a statement from Lurie Thursday morning that Trump assured him he “was calling off any plans for a federal deployment in San Francisco.” Last month, Trump named the city as one of many places where he planned to deploy the U.S. military for “training,” and on Wednesday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the administration planned to send 100 federal agents, including from the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection, there within days.

Those plans appear to be on hold for now, thanks to Trump’s tech baron allies talking him out of targeting San Francisco like he has with other cities across America, including Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. The city may also have benefited from the fact that unlike the other cities Trump has targeted, it doesn’t have a Black mayor.

Whatever the reasoning, California’s Bay Area has momentarily been spared from Trump’s heavy-handed federal agents, a surprise considering that California Governor (and former San Francisco mayor) Gavin Newsom has positioned himself as a persistent Trump critic. Maybe other cities should try and convince a wealthy tech CEO or two to keep the president from siccing his agents on them.

Originally published by newrepublic.com. Syndicated material does not necessarily reflect the views of Grazia British.

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