President Donald Trump is considering sending National Guard troops to San Francisco, he said Wednesday, making the California city the latest target for his administration.
“We have great support in San Francisco, so I would like to recommend that for inclusion, maybe in your next group,” Trump said in a press conference Wednesday alongside FBI Director Kash Patel and other administration officials.
Trump claimed the suggested deployment comes “at the request of government officials,” as the administration continues its campaign through major U.S. cities.
It was not clear who those officials are; a spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the Democrat has been harshly critical of the president’s Guard deployments, and his office put out a long statement earlier in the day to announce “significant updates to public safety efforts in San Francisco and the greater Bay Area.”
The move, should Trump follow through with it, would make San Francisco the latest city to receive the National Guard on its streets — and the second in California — after the administration also sent troops to Los Angeles; Washington; Chicago; Portland, Oregon, and Memphis, Tennessee, in recent months.
There has been a pitched legal battle over Trump’s Guard deployments. California sued over the Los Angeles deployment, with a district court ruling in June that it was illegal and an appellate court quickly pausing that decision. A federal district judge in Chicago blocked the administration’s plan to deploy the guard in the city last week, the same day that a federal appeals court panel in Oregon seemed poised to allow a similar deployment in Portland.
Trump has previously publicly mused about sending troops to San Francisco with other major U.S. cities, like Baltimore and New Orleans, also falling on the list.
Tyler Katzenberger contributed to this report.