Mayor Daniel Lurie walking through the Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco, with William Scott, then the chief of the San Francisco Police Department, on the morning of his inauguration in January.Credit...Loren Elliott for The New York Times
For Mayor Daniel Lurie of San Francisco, there are two words that he dares not mention: Donald Trump.
This week, his refusal held true even after the president sent National Guard troops into Los Angeles and called up the Marines, leaving many San Franciscans to wonder if their liberal California city could be next.
Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles, Representative Nancy Pelosi and Gov. Gavin Newsom have each blamed Mr. Trump for causing chaos. Mr. Newsom, in a nationally televised address on Tuesday night,
told Americans that Mr. Trump was putting democracy at risk and that they should rise up to stop him.
But Mr. Lurie has staunchly avoided discussing Mr. Trump’s actions, even when asked on multiple occasions to respond to the various ways that the president’s policies have affected his city. This week, Mr. Lurie instead focused on praising the San Francisco Police Department for the way it handled two protests in the city that were intended to show solidarity with Los Angeles.
Mr. Lurie,
an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, won voter support in November on a
promise to improve the daily lives of San Franciscans and avoid ideological disputes. The moderate Democrat, five months into his first-ever elected position, would still rather talk about public safety and trash cleanups.
One protest on Sunday night
turned violent when demonstrators clashed with police officers in riot gear, leading to 154 arrests. Another protest on Monday night was far calmer, but a splinter group vandalized buildings and sprayed graffiti, and the police arrested 92 people. Through Monday, more people were arrested in protests in San Francisco than those in Los Angeles, though Los Angeles has since had more.
Several members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, akin to a City Council, have taken to the streets with demonstrators or given fiery speeches from the steps of City Hall, a show of solidarity with other residents against Mr. Trump’s deportations and use of military force in California.
Mr. Lurie, however, spent the protest nights Sunday and Monday huddled with the police chief, fire chief and officials with the Department of Emergency Management in an emergency command center a few blocks from City Hall.
He then called news conferences on Monday and Tuesday to praise his police department, announce city crews were cleaning graffiti from businesses free of charge and reiterate that anyone caught vandalizing property would be arrested.
Mr. Lurie declined to discuss whether he thought the National Guard might come to San Francisco next. He would not say whether he considered Mr. Trump an authoritarian. He would not offer his opinion of the president saying that Mr. Newsom, for whom the mayor’s wife has worked as an aide for years, should be arrested.
He answered almost every question with a version of the same answer.
“My message is, we are keeping San Franciscans safe,” Mr. Lurie said. “We have this under control.”
He spent much of Tuesday’s news conference discussing a totally unrelated topic: proposed changes to how long recreational vehicles can be parked on city streets.
Mr. Lurie’s colleagues expressed shock that five months into a presidential term that has targeted California in extraordinary ways, the mayor still won’t discuss Mr. Trump.
“It is like he who shall not be named,” Supervisor Myrna Melgar said. Her family arrived in California from El Salvador when she was 12 and lived without legal papers until her father obtained citizenship through his work.
Mr. Lurie’s effort to revitalize San Francisco after the pandemic relies on the work of undocumented immigrants in hotels, restaurants and construction sites, said Ms. Melgar, who added that the mayor needed to speak out forcefully on their behalf and against the president.
“I have been disappointed that he has been so quiet,” she said. “We need the kind of leader who steps up to the moment. This is San Francisco, the place that welcomes people from all over, the open, tolerant city.”
Supervisor Jackie Fielder, who represents the Mission District, a heavily Latino neighborhood, said she thought the mayor should condemn the actions of the president and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
She said ICE agents picked up 15 people at a San Francisco immigration office building for check-in appointments last week, one of them a 3-year-old. Agents picked up more people from the immigration courthouse on Tuesday. ICE did not respond to requests for information.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “Most San Franciscans despise Trump.”
At news conferences this week, Mr. Lurie acknowledged the “fear and anxiety” in the community and said the city’s sanctuary policies of not cooperating with federal immigration officials would continue. On Tuesday, he
reiterated that on X after the ICE detentions.
But allies of Mr. Lurie said that they understood his strategy. Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, the president of the board, said that San Franciscans are not interested in a war of words between their mayor and the president.
“They want him to do everything he can to protect San Francisco’s vulnerable communities,” Mr. Mandelman said.
Nancy Tung, chairwoman of the San Francisco Democratic Party, suggested that ignoring Mr. Trump may even have kept the president’s focus away from San Francisco.
“Maybe his reluctance to utter the president’s name or denounce him has actually kept the militaristic type of ICE raids out of San Francisco,” she said.
In an interview, Mr. Lurie said that he worked for the residents of San Francisco and understood that some of them were fearful now.
Asked if it was true that he would not say the word Trump, Mr. Lurie gave a tight-lipped smile. He said nothing.
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