Trump Praises the Democratic Mayor of San Francisco for Trying to Clean Up the City

President Donald Trump offered rare praise on Thursday for a Democrat running a deep blue city, which regularly serve as some of his favorite targets for ridicule.

During Thursday’s Cabinet meeting, Trump spoke after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and pivoted away from discussing the war on Iran to talk about illegal immigration and crime.

“I think before I ask Scott to say a couple of words, it would be great if people like the Mayor of Chicago and the Governor of Illinois would say, please come in and stop the crime. A beautiful young lady was killed the other day, and the father was a very good friend of Dan Scavino. And he took it very hard — Dan took it very hard — and liked the father. Friends. They grew up together,” Trump said, adding:

It’s a young lady whose life would have been saved if we did what we did, as an example, in Washington, D.C., which is now a safe city. All the time, people come up to me in the building — people that work here — they say, “Thank you so much.” I know immediately what they’re talking about. They’re able to walk to work. They walk to work. You all walk to work. Some of you were mugged — I know you told me sooner — some of you were mugged. One person in particular was graciously mugged. In the group right here. It’s not happening anymore. You have a safe city.

Louisiana — the Governor of Louisiana called me: “Can you help me with New Orleans?” They just had the Mardi Gras. He said it was the safest Mardi Gras we’ve ever had. Sounds terrible to say. No murders. You know, it sounds like — who would say this? — no murders. But they always had murders. They had a lot of crime during Mardi Gras, he said. Virtually no crime. We had the troops down there.

Memphis, Tennessee — I just got back, we were there — crime is down 75 percent in a short period of time. We’ve been there five months. We could do that for Chicago, we could do that for New York, we could do that for L.A., and we could do that, frankly, for San Francisco.

“I know they have a mayor who’s trying very hard. He’s a Democrat, but he’s trying very hard,” Trump then said of San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie (D). Lurie grabbed headlines last month when he announced that his city will start arresting anyone doing drugs on the streets and place them in a high-volume care facility. Lurie has successfully stopped the Trump administration from deploying a large federal law enforcement presence in his city as he works to crack down on crime.

“But we can do it much more effectively, because he can’t do what we do. He can’t take people out from the city and bring them back to the country from where they came, where they were in prisons. They were allowed to go — in prisons, there were drug dealers, the highest level of drug dealers. Murderers. 11,888 murders. We do things that they can’t do,” Trump continued, adding:

I had friends calling me up from San Francisco: “Could you give him a chance?” I said, “Absolutely. If you want, I’ll give him a chance.” He’s trying, he’s doing okay, but we can do much better. We can make it a lot safer than it is. San Francisco — a great city, was a great city — could quickly become a great city again.

But, you know, they’re going very slowly. I tell my friends — they are very substantial people, they’re in a certain business where people have made a lot of money; I hope that lasts — but they have tremendous, tremendous potential. It was one of the greatest cities in the world. Now it’s got a lot of crime. And the mayor’s really trying. Again, a Democrat trying. And I spoke to him. He just wants to have a chance. And I said, “We’ll give you a chance, but we can solve it very quickly.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!