A dear friend once shared some wisdom his father had taught him: You can be right, or you can get what you want. He was counseling me against making myself feel good by mouthing off in a dispute with a superior, saying that instead I should figure out how to achieve the best outcome for myself — the two actions being mutually exclusive.
I have thought about that advice in regard to Mayor Daniel Lurie’s refusal to provoke Donald Trump, going so far as to not even allow the president’s name to pass his lips.
So many San Franciscans undoubtedly would love to hear or see Lurie go after the odious Trump, as California Gov. Gavin Newsom has done recently and House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi has done many times. (Her on-camera shredding of Trump’s just-completed State of the Union address in 2020 was an act of protest for the ages.)
Instead, Lurie, with the discipline of a funny-hatted guard at Buckingham Palace who won’t make eye contact with an annoying tourist, steadfastly refuses to poke the orange-hued bear.
And while it would feel awfully good to witness the mayor, a generous, big-hearted, honorable man, teeing off on the opportunist in the Oval, Lurie is right to keep his eye on the prize, which is not giving Trump any special excuses to target San Francisco.
More to the point, Lurie’s strategy seems to be working — at least as well as can be expected.
Consider the differences, playing out in real time, between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The former has dominated international headlines for days, with scenes of mayhem coupled with patrolling by federalized National Guard troops and U.S. Marines.
In the latter, the protests have been largely peaceful — overwhelmingly so this past weekend. And where there has been violence, the San Francisco Police Department has made arrests, eliminating any pretext for federal intervention. As Lurie said at a press briefing early last week when asked about the possibility of National Guard troops here: “My message is: We are keeping San Franciscans safe. We have this under control.”
Angelenos, egged on by the presidentially ambitious governor, absolutely have been right. Trump’s actions have been heinous. But San Francisco has gotten, if not satisfaction, a version of what it wants: peaceful protest and minimal meddling from Trump. In a Truth Social post Sunday, the president called for stepped-up immigration raids in three cities; ours was not one of them.
Lurie’s reticence to rile Trump has benefited his city in other ways. In February, the president threatened to fire the board of the Presidio Trust, a beloved project of Pelosi. Lurie, quietly counseled by the veteran lawmaker, said nothing, and Trump, as is his wont, seems to have forgotten about the Presidio.
Lurie also didn’t take Trump’s bait on his flat-out silly suggestion to reopen Alcatraz as a prison. That idea predictably has gone nowhere.
It’s true that Lurie may be powerless to stop the federal government from cutting off badly needed funds for San Francisco, notably through Washington’s support for the state’s Medi-Cal reimbursements and pandemic-era expenditures from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The yanked medical funding isn’t law yet, and the city is appealing the FEMA cutoff. Not antagonizing Trump holds out more hope there than sticking a finger in his eye.
It’s not like Lurie is giving in to Trump. He has maintained San Francisco’s sanctuary-city policies, reminding listeners at a City Hall rally last week that “our police officers and city staff do not assist with federal immigration enforcement.” Contrast that with Newsom, who, in an interview with The New York Times, noted that under his leadership, the state, unlike the city where he once was mayor, does “coordinate with ICE as it relates to dangerous criminals.”
But by not needlessly provoking Trump, Lurie has succeeded in keeping San Francisco — despite its legendarily liberal ways and punching-bag status on Fox News — out of the MAGA limelight. A House hearing on sanctuary cities in March featured the mayors of Boston, Denver, Chicago, and New York. San Francisco easily could have been included.
At this point, it has become sport to wonder if Lurie will ever address the Trump issue head-on. In April, my colleague Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez, in an interview to mark Lurie’s first 100 days in office, asked the mayor if he would make a statement about Trump. “I am trying to protect San Franciscans the best way I know how right now,” Lurie responded. “And that is to focus on getting results for the people of San Francisco, working with my friends in labor, in the nonprofit community, and with department heads around how we manage this very uncertain and difficult time in what’s going on in this country.”
In other words, no.
To be clear on one thing, I think and have thought, at least since “The Apprentice” first appeared on television in 2004, that Donald Trump is an abomination. (I interviewed him for Fortune magazine that year. Read this if you don’t believe me now that I saw him for what he was then.)
But I’m not the mayor of San Francisco.
I saw a photo of a T-shirt at a rally somewhere over the weekend that read: “Elect a clown, expect a circus.” San Francisco is experiencing the inverse. Rather than a money-grubbing president with his hand out (see: jet, Qatari; ill-gotten riches; cryptocurrencies), San Francisco elected a mayor who inherited his wealth and is pressuring his peers to donate theirs for the good of the city. This mayor didn’t ask for a fancier plane he could keep when he leaves office; he donated a fancier car to the city so he could ride around in it.
San Franciscans didn’t choose a moral crusader to lead them. They opted for a nice guy who promised to clean up their streets and be a booster for the city he loves. (Mission Local’s Joe Eskenazi made this point nicely last week.)
That mayor is doing the right thing by staying out of the president’s way — and keeping his city out of Trump’s sights.