President Donald Trump and the specter of a federal crackdown loomed over San Francisco throughout 2025, but aside from a few panicked moments, the city avoided a head-on collision with the MAGA crowd, thanks to phone calls from tech titans, lawsuits, and strategic near-silence from the city\u2019s chief executive.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not to say San Francisco was unaffected by the first year of Trump\u2019s second term. But despite repeated warnings that federal forces were heading in, San Francisco did not become a battleground like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n
Whether through skill, connections, or fortune, San Francisco consumed presidential attention but avoided presidential action.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the last year, the federal administration has unjustly targeted many American communities, cities, and states,\u201d City Attorney David Chiu told The Standard. \u201cWe do not relish filing lawsuits against the federal administration, but we must do so to protect San Francisco\u2019s residents, policies, and funding. Thus far, our legal efforts have safeguarded key San Francisco policies and preserved billions of dollars in federal funding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Radio station on notice<\/p>\n
The Trump administration tangled this year with media heavyweights like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and talk-show hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Fallon. Closer to home, the Federal Communications Commission went after San Francisco\u2019s news radio station.\u00a0<\/p>\n
FCC Chair Brendan Carr called out KCBS\u2019 reporting on the movements of undercover Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents <\/a>around the Bay Area. In a Jan. 26 broadcast, anchor Bret Burkhart said San Jose Mayor Mahan and Councilmember Pete Ortiz were confirming actions by ICE agents in that city, before quoting a local rapid-response network\u2019s descriptions of federal vehicles and reporting sightings of agents outside a residence and a Target store.\u00a0<\/p>\n Carr told a Fox News host (opens in new tab)<\/a> on Feb. 6 that the agency\u2019s enforcement bureau had sent a letter of inquiry about whether the broadcast violated the terms of KCBS\u2019 license.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cuts, closures<\/p>\n As the administration slashed federal spending across the country, programs and organizations in San Francisco were caught in the downsizing. Cuts to federal agencies boded poorly for the city\u2019s Museum of the African Diaspora<\/a>, as well as for nonprofits<\/a> addressing the housing crisis. Not long after the General Services Administration announced its intent to sell downtown office buildings<\/a> \u2014 including one named<\/a> for Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi \u2014 the city attorney\u2019s office joined a lawsuit<\/a> against the Department of Government Efficiency\u2019s mass firings of thousands of government employees.<\/p>\n Dissolve the Presidio<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s campaign to dismantle and shake up San Francisco began in earnest Feb. 12, when he signed an executive order<\/a> calling for the dissolution of the Presidio Trust, the federal agency that manages the former military base turned national park.\u00a0<\/p>\n The order called the trust \u201cwasteful\u201d and proposed transferring the 1,500-acre site, which draws 9.5 million visitors per year, to the Department of the Interior for \u201cbetter use,\u201d leaving businesses and workers<\/a> baffled. The trust\u2019s leadership pushed back directly<\/a>, noting that the park is financially self-sufficient. <\/p>\n Trump\u2019s order also drew notice from a Native tribe that petitioned the federal government<\/a> for custody of the site, and calls for its designation as a \u201cfreedom city\u201d undoubtedly inspired (opens in new tab)<\/a> other calls for repurposing of former federal land<\/a>. A Presidio rep declined to comment on the park\u2019s eventful year.<\/p>\n Reopen Alcatraz?<\/p>\n If the idea of getting rid of the Presidio ruffled feathers, people absolutely lost their minds when Trump suggested it was time to reopen a high-security prison<\/a> on Alcatraz Island. <\/p>\n In May, just hours after a South Florida PBS television station aired a certain Clint Eastwood film (opens in new tab)<\/a>, Trump posted on Truth Social that he was \u201cdirecting the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America\u2019s most ruthless and violent Offenders.\u201d<\/p>\n It seemed like a joke or a passing thought, because Alcatraz is, of course, a national park, and running a prison there decades ago was expensive. But in a choreographed visit to the decrepit redoubt<\/a> in July, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Attorney General Pam Bondi touted plans<\/a> to convert it. Rep. Nancy Pelosi called the suggestion \u201cthe Trump administration\u2019s stupidest initiative yet,\u201d and state Sen. Scott Wiener compared the idea<\/a> to \u201cbasically lighting taxpayer dollars on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n The crackdown that wasn\u2019t<\/p>\n Immigrants have been detained while showing up for routine court hearings and check-ins in the Bay Area. Opponents of the president\u2019s immigration policy have engaged in large demonstrations<\/a> that have resulted in arrests. But after so much bluster, Trump hasn\u2019t pounced.<\/p>\n \u201cLook at what Democrats have done to San Francisco,\u201d Trump said<\/a> in a White House speech Aug. 22. \u201cThey\u2019ve destroyed it. We could clean that up too. We\u2019ll clean that one up too.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut it seems that the ones that are run by the radical left Democrats, what they\u2019ve done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they\u2019re very unsafe places,\u201d Trump told (opens in new tab)<\/a> an audience of military officials gathered Sept. 30 at Quantico, Virginia. \u201cAnd we\u2019re going to straighten them out one by one. And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That\u2019s a war too; it\u2019s a war from within.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The president\u2019s call for a crackdown came against a growing regional disquiet over federal enforcement visibility that included the June deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles<\/a> and an uptick in arrests and attendant protests<\/a> at immigration processing locations in downtown San Francisco. <\/p>\n Mayor Daniel Lurie refrained from picking a fight. \u201cCrime in San Francisco is down 30%; it\u2019s down 40% in our financial district,\u201d Lurie said at a press conference<\/a> the day of Trump\u2019s military address. \u201cThat\u2019s what I can control.\u201d<\/p>\n On Oct. 10, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told The New York Times (opens in new tab)<\/a> that he welcomed the idea of National Guard members coming to the city and, noting the shortage of 1,000 San Francisco Police Department officers, said,<\/a> \u201cif they can be cops, I\u2019m all for it.\u201d In an interview with The Standard<\/a> a day later, Benioff took umbrage over accusations that he had effectively distanced himself from the city, while observers expressed either scorn or steely neutrality<\/a> at his call\u2019s impacts. (opens in new tab)<\/a><\/p>\n Trump repeated his interest in sending authorities to San Francisco at an Oct. 15 press conference<\/a> with FBI Director Kash Patel. In a Fox News TV appearance (opens in new tab)<\/a> a few days later, he said San Francisco was \u201ctruly one of the great cities of the world, and then 15 years ago it went wrong \u2014 it went woke. We are gonna go to San Francisco, and we are going to make it great.\u201d<\/p>\n On Oct. 22, reports emerged<\/a> of a ramp-up of Customs and Border Protection agents tasked with immigration enforcement duties at Coast Guard Island, an artificial island<\/a> in the Oakland estuary. The next day, agents used pepper balls and flash-bang grenades<\/a> while trying to disperse hundreds of protesters who filled an intersection at the causeway leading to the island. One protester attempted to back a rented truck onto the causeway, drawing gunfire<\/a> from Coast Guard and charges from federal prosecutors<\/a>.<\/p>\n But last-minute negotiations, including conversations with Lurie, Benioff and Nvidia CEO (and city arts<\/a> patron<\/a>) Jensen Huang, led Trump to cancel the surge<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Federal Government was preparing to \u2018surge\u2019 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,\u201d Trump said<\/a> in a Truth Social post (opens in new tab)<\/a>. \u201cThey want to give it a \u2018shot.\u2019 Therefore, we will not surge San Francisco on Saturday. Stay tuned!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump and the specter of a federal crackdown loomed over San Francisco throughout 2025, but aside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[60924,636,14421,536,2288,12463,60923,101,103,102,104,106,105,36094],"class_list":{"0":"post-113660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-alcatraz","9":"tag-daniel-lurie","10":"tag-david-chiu","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-marc-benioff","13":"tag-presidio","14":"tag-presidio-trust","15":"tag-san-francisco","16":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","17":"tag-san-francisco-news","18":"tag-sf","19":"tag-sf-headlines","20":"tag-sf-news","21":"tag-trump-vs-california"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}