Lauren Dezenski
(Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump said his administration would look to San Francisco as the next target of his federal crime crackdown, which has been mostly directed at Democrat-run cities.
“I’m going to be strongly recommending at the request of government officials, which is always nice, that you start looking at San Francisco,” Trump said during a White House event on Wednesday, joined by FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi. “I think we can make San Francisco — there’s one of our great cities 10 years ago, 15 years ago. Now it’s a mess, and we have great support in San Francisco.”
Trump has moved to deploy US troops and federal law enforcement officials to major cities to target crime and counter demonstrations against his deportations of undocumented migrants even in the face of legal challenges. Trump has deployed National Guard personnel to Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Memphis, Chicago and Portland, claiming that Democratic state and local officials have failed to protect citizens and allowed violence to spiral out of control.
Critics have accused Trump of exaggerating the threat and in Washington cast the deployments as a public relations exercise in a city where violent crime has fallen from post-pandemic highs. The Portland and Chicago deployments are currently facing legal challenges, but Trump has repeatedly floated expanding his efforts. The Los Angeles deployment was ruled unconstitutional earlier this year by a judge.
Trump on Wednesday at the White House also announced the results of Operation Summer Heat, an effort he said was carried out in major cities to arrest violent criminals.
“Over the past few months, FBI officers in all 50 states made crushing violent crime a top enforcement priority. That’s what they did, rounding up and arresting thousands of the most violent and dangerous criminals,” Trump said.
The president said that the effort was carried out “in many cities that people didn’t know about. We kept it a little quiet, and it had a big impact.”
According to Trump, the FBI arrested over 8,000 violent criminals during the operation in major cities, including 725 individuals wanted for violent crimes against children and murderers.
–With assistance from Jennifer A. Dlouhy.
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