President Donald Trump has had a change of heart after his “friends” asked him not to deploy federal troops to San Francisco.
The president wrote in a Truth Social post on Thursday that he has—for now—called off his plans to deploy military or National Guard troops to the California city as part of his so-called crime crackdown.
Trump, 79, wrote that “great people” including tech leaders Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff asked him to stall his efforts.
“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,” he wrote.
Trump said Lurie, 48, asked “very nicely” for a chance to “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,” Trump wrote.
“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.”
He concluded: “They want to give it a ‘shot.’ Therefore, we will not surge San Francisco on Saturday. Stay tuned!”
In a statement on X, Lurie, one of the heirs to the Levi Strauss jeans company, wrote that he received a call from Trump on Wednesday night and that he told the president, “San Francisco is on the rise.”
Yesterday, I spoke to San Franciscans about a potential federal deployment in our city. I said then what I have said since taking office, that keeping San Franciscans safe is my top priority.Late last night, I received a phone call from the President of the United States. I…
— Daniel Lurie 丹尼爾·羅偉 (@DanielLurie) October 23, 2025
“We have work to do, and we would welcome continued partnerships with the FBI, DEA, ATF, and U.S. Attorney to get drugs and drug dealers off our streets, but having the military and militarized immigration enforcement in our city will hinder our recovery,” he wrote. “We appreciate that the president understands that we are the global hub for technology, and when San Francisco is strong, our country is strong.”
“In that conversation, the president told me clearly that he was calling off any plans for a federal deployment in San Francisco,” Lurie wrote. “Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem reaffirmed that direction in our conversation this morning.”
“My team will continue to monitor the situation closely, and our city remains prepared for any scenario,” he wrote.
Trump’s decision to delay troops comes after California Governor Gavin Newsom condemned the move, which is just the latest example of the Trump administration sending federal agents into Democratic-led cities.
“This is right out of the dictator’s handbook,” Newsom said in a video posted on X.“Donald Trump does this over and over again; he says he’s going to send in the National Guard to address ‘uncontrollable’ crime rates, which are fictitious.”
In another video posted to social media, Newsom discussed California’s response to Trump’s maneuvers. “We’re gonna be fierce in terms of our response, we’re gonna be focused. Quite literally: this is the lawsuit that I will file within a nanosecond of any efforts to send the military to one of America’s great cities, San Francisco,” Newsom said, holding up what appears to be a legal document.
The San Francisco Chronicle first reported on Wednesday that more than 100 federal agents, including many from Customs and Border Protection, had been dispatched to a U.S. Coast Guard base in the East Bay and were expected to begin arriving on Thursday.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for additional comments. A spokesperson for the department told the Daily Beast on Wednesday, “As the Secretary said on Monday, DHS is targeting the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens—including murderers, rapists, gang members, pedophiles, and terrorists—in cities such as Portland, Chicago, Memphis and San Francisco. As it does every day, DHS law enforcement will enforce the laws of our nation.”
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