In the midst of Trump’s fight with LA, avoids the mayor of San Francisco to discuss politics

For mayor Daniel Lurie van San Francisco there are two words that he does not dare to mention: Donald Trump.

This week his refusal kept, even after the President National Guard had sent troops to Los Angeles and called the Marines, so many San Franciscans wondered whether their liberal Californian city could be the next.

Mayor Karen Bass van Los Angeles, representative Nancy Pelosi and Gov. Gavin Newsom each blamed Mr Trump for causing chaos. Mr. Newsom, in a National Television address on Tuesday evening, Americans told That Mr. Trump endangered democracy and that they had to get up to stop him.

But Mr. Lurie has avoided the actions of Mr Trump, even when they are asked several times to respond to the different ways in which the President’s policy has influenced. This week Mr. Lurie, instead, focused on the prizes of the police of San Francisco for the way in which it handled two protests in the city that were intended to show solidarity with Los Angeles.

Mr. Lurie, An heir to the Fortuin of Levi Strausswon voter support in November on one Promise to improve the daily life of San Franciscans And avoid ideological disputes. The moderate Democrat, five months in his very first -chosen position, would still prefer to talk about public safety and waste clearances.

One protest on Sunday evening became violent When demonstrators collided with police officers in rioting, which led to 154 arrests. Another protest on Monday evening was much quieter, but a splinter group destroyed buildings and spray graffiti, and the police arrested 92 people. Up to and including Monday, more people were arrested in protests in San Francisco than in Los Angeles, although Los Angeles has had more since then.

Several members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, related to a city council, took to the streets with demonstrators or fiery speeches from the steps of the town hall, a show of solidarity with other residents against the deportations of Mr Trump and the use of military force in California.

Mr Lurie spent the protest evenings on Sunday and Monday with the police chief, fire brigade commander and officials at the Ministry of Emergency Management in an Emergency Command Center, a few blocks from the town hall.

He then called news conferences to praise his police on Monday and Tuesday, it announced that Graffiti city crews were cleaning companies for free and repeat that everyone who caught burned ownership would be arrested.

Mr. Lurie refused to discuss whether he thought the National Guard could then come to San Francisco. He would not say if he considered Mr Trump as an authoritarian one. He would not give his opinion about the president that Mr. Newsom, for whom the mayor of the mayor has worked as an assistant for years, must be arrested.

He answered almost every question with a version of the same answer.

“My message is, we keep San Franciscans safe,” said Mr. Lurie. “We have this under control.”

He spent a large part of Tuesday’s press conference discussing a totally non -related subject: proposed changes to how long recreational vehicles can be parked in city streets.

He did acknowledge the “fear and fear” in the community and said that the sanctuary policy of the city in order not to work with federal immigration officials would continue.

Mr. Lurie’s colleagues shocked that five months in a presidential term that has focused on California in extraordinary ways, the mayor will still not discuss Mr Trump.

“It is as he will not be called,” said myrna Melgar supervisor. Her family arrived in California from El Salvador when she was 12 and lived without legal articles until her father obtained citizenship through his work.

Mr. Lurie’s attempt to breathe new life into San Francisco after the pandemic is dependent on the work of people without papers in hotels, restaurants and construction sites, said Mrs. Melgar, who added that the mayor had to express himself strongly on their behalf and to the president.

“I am disappointed that he has been so quiet,” she said. “We need the kind of leader at the moment. This is San Francisco, the place that people from the whole, open, tolerant city welcomes.”

Supervisor Jackie Fielder, who represents the mission district, a heavy Latino neighborhood, said she thought that the mayor should condemn the actions of the immigration of the president and the American immigrations and customs.

She said that ICE agents picked up 15 people in 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 -court building on Tuesday. ICE did not respond to information for information.

“I don’t get it,” she said. “Most San Franciscans despise Trump.”

But allies of Mr. Lurie said they understood his strategy. Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, the president of the board, said that San Franciscans were not interested in a word war between their mayor and the president.

“They want him to do everything to protect the vulnerable communities of San Francisco,” said Mr. Mandelman.

Nancy Tung, chairman of the Democratic Party of San Francisco, suggested that the ignoring of Mr. Trump perhaps even kept the focus of the President from San Francisco away.

“Perhaps his reluctance to pronounce the name of the president or to denounce it, kept the militarist type of ice raids from San Francisco,” she said.

In an interview, Mr Lurie said that he was working for the inhabitants of San Francisco and understood that some of them were now anxious.

Asked if it was true that he would not say the word Trump, Mr. Lurie a tight lipped smile. He said nothing.