S2 Episode 17: Trump Grants Mayor Lurie a Reprieve

Richie and Erica discuss last Thursday's announcement President Trump will hold off "surging" federal agents into San Francisco, at city mayor Lurie's request. The pressure is squarely on Mayor Lurie as he has to perform. Instead, Lurie, joined by city hall officials, pushed back and celebrated fending off Trump. Listen as we critique this decision and how it's not the victory some people think it was.

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Transcript

Really, San Francisco? Podcast

S2 Episode 17

President Trump, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and the Fed Agents Being Held Back from now.

Richie Greenberg: Hi, good morning, I'm Richie Greenberg, and this is Really San Francisco, the podcast that talks about all the good and all the bad in our wonderful city by the bay. And of course, I'm here with my wonderful co-host, Erica Sandberg. Say hi, Erica!

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Erica Sandberg: Good morning, everyone.

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Richie Greenberg: And just a quick reminder before we go forward, we've got our website up right here, greenbergsandberg.com, and that's where you can find bios about Erica and myself.

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Richie Greenberg: and links of how to listen to this podcast, the Really San Francisco podcast, and thanks, everyone, for listening and for joining us, today. So, you know, one of the things that is really,

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Richie Greenberg: been, in the news within the last 4 or 5 days, and it has exploded on the national scene.

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Richie Greenberg: is that, Trump was threatening, as we know, Trump was threatening to send in a National Guard, something that, a lot of us, and myself and Erica, we have talked about this in the past, that San Francisco needs some sort of

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Richie Greenberg: Higher up federal intervention, some sort of enforcement to either help or take the lead.

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Richie Greenberg: In clearing the streets, not of the…

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Richie Greenberg: illegal aliens that are just working to try and make, you know, make ends meet, but the transnational narco-terrorists, those who are…

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Richie Greenberg: Bringing in and selling their drugs and fentanyl.

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Richie Greenberg: To the drug addicts on much of San Francisco's downtown important areas.

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Richie Greenberg: And, Trump said, under…

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Richie Greenberg: you know, under pressure to, we need to do this, we need to send in the National Guard, and even one of the local billionaire big business owners, Mark Benioff, who is the founder and CEO and all things related to Salesforce, that's a tech company.

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Richie Greenberg: Even he… was saying, we need to have the National Guard, boots on the ground, brought into San Francisco.

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Richie Greenberg: And, Erica, do you remember what happened as soon as he said that, as soon as Benioff…

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Richie Greenberg: said and pleaded, and apparently was even trying to convince Trump to send in the National Guard.

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Erica Sandberg: Yeah, certainly the, the statement from Mark Benioff, came…

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Erica Sandberg: I think it was right before or even during, Dreamforce, which is his annual conference, brings… it used to, I think, bring about 70,000 people to the city, but there were around 50,000, which is enormous.

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Erica Sandberg: So, his intention was, of course, to create a stable, pleasant, more than pleasant environment. And if you look around the area.

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Erica Sandberg: It is… it's pretty bad, and there's no doubt about it. It's… there's no cleaning it up to the extent where it really says, okay, well, this is actual truth, as opposed to a sort of a false impression about what's going on. Yeah, he… he…

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Erica Sandberg: wanted the area and San Francisco itself to be, rid of the… grocery.

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Richie Greenberg: The drug dealer, you're right, the riff-raff, all of that.

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Erica Sandberg: Yeah, exactly.

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Richie Greenberg: Now, quick, quick question, what about our own law enforcement? What about San Francisco as the SFPD, and personnel? Why couldn't they handle it?

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Erica Sandberg: So this comes up a lot, and certainly I have… I just interviewed, Supervisor Matt Dorsey of D6, and… about this issue.

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Richie Greenberg: So just, just, supervisor in this case means City Councilman, for those who aren't familiar. We call our city council people, they are supervisors, they have their own district, and one of the hardest hit areas is District 6, and Matt Dorsey is the supervisor of City Council of that particular area.

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Erica Sandberg: That's right, and he was the communications director, I believe, for SFPD, so he's got a pretty…

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Richie Greenberg: In the past, yeah.

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Erica Sandberg: Yes, correct. Okay, so… We are down…

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Erica Sandberg: between 500 and 600 officers minimum, so we do not have the boots-on-the-ground capability to deal with this in an effective way. So, that's a huge issue. It's a large number of people who are not there. So, when they're not there, crime can flourish.

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Richie Greenberg: And that strains the resources also of SFPD, because, you know, if you call in as many as possible just to deal with one company, one person, Benioff's.

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Richie Greenberg: You know, a couple of day-long shindig in one part of the city.

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Richie Greenberg: Who's gonna take care of the rest of the city?

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Erica Sandberg: Yeah, there's a lot of downstream effect, when it comes to not having enough officers out patrolling and making arrests and making sure that there's peace on the streets.

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Erica Sandberg: is… one of them is that the police officers do tend to be overwhelmed and overworked, so they're not as efficient as they could be, so it's a really big problem. Enabling, troops to come and be that extra source of

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Erica Sandberg: Boots on the ground.

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Erica Sandberg: Would have been a, there are… there were… there would have been positive

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Erica Sandberg: effects of that. Now, talking to Matt Dorsey, he did say, well, you know, this is a police matter. Yes, it is a police matter, but if you don't have the police, what are you going to do? It takes approximately one year to get from the academy onto the streets. That's a long period of time. It's a long…

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Richie Greenberg: For recruits, like SFPD recruits, the ones who say, I want to do this, I want to join the force, then they have to go through all the vetting and all the testing to even…

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Erica Sandberg: to even get approved to go into the academy, all the expense of doing that, and then there's not…

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Richie Greenberg: That great a…

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Richie Greenberg: graduation rate as well. By the end, how many… attrition, right? How many drop out of the academy?

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Erica Sandberg: Well, there's that, but Richie, I mean, what we're looking at is a gap between what we have

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Erica Sandberg: right now to what, ideally, what we will have in the future. During this time, during this very critical time, what do we have? Before we started the podcast today, we were talking about the very real situation in our communities.

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Erica Sandberg: that as much as the powers that be would love to project this image that we're… San Francisco's on the rise, and it is in some ways.

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Richie Greenberg: In some ways, of course. In some ways, in some aspects.

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Erica Sandberg: That's right, but to be realistic, and to be honest, the… the…

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Erica Sandberg: situation that is playing out every single day in the Tenderloin Civic Center, south of Market 16th and Mission, and I could go on.

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Erica Sandberg: is…

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Erica Sandberg: a nightmare. It is… okay, that is… sounds like hyperbole, but I'm saying it really is… to describe it would be a very thick concentration of human beings buying and selling drugs on the streets, overdosing, committing crimes, and…

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Richie Greenberg: In the open, in the open.

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Erica Sandberg: And I call it the 6 to 6, although it's not just the 6 to 6. 6 p.m. to 6 a.m, and the life in San Francisco changes dramatically.

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Richie Greenberg: And it's the nighttime hours under the cover of darkness.

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Erica Sandberg: That's right, that's right. Now, of course, it bleeds into other time frames, too, but the 6 to 6 is really the highest concentration, and I did talk to Matt Dorsey about that, and his statements were, well, yes, we do know that, yes, it is happening, yes, we are working on it. Working on it. What is happening?

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Richie Greenberg: So, so let's, let's, yeah, what's happening?

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Richie Greenberg: Let's, let's look at something quick. So, benioff…

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Richie Greenberg: wanted… he was actually interviewed, I think it was the Wall Street Journal, and that's one of the things that just really triggered all of this, blowback, the backlash against him. Like, how can you do that? How can you say that?

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Richie Greenberg: And he had very valid concerns, very valid reasons. It's also not just to clean up certain areas or patrol certain areas, but he was trying to look

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Richie Greenberg: after the well-being of 50,000 people that were attending his, his convention, his expo, right? And we know that that would have been a problem if there were not a sufficient number of

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Richie Greenberg: law enforcement and peacekeeping people in the area around to protect that. Now, what wound up happening…

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Richie Greenberg: is he then pulled back. After it was already assumed by Trump and elsewhere in media across the country, that Trump was going to surge, using that word, surge.

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Richie Greenberg: the National Guard or others into San Francisco. San Francisco leaders went into a panic, the media went into a panic, and…

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Richie Greenberg: Then, just beforehand, we see Benioff make the announcement that he is backing off on the request. And a lot of us were like, what is going on? Head scratcher, why did he decide to change his mind? Well, I guess, apparently, among other things.

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Richie Greenberg: He was Benioff.

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Richie Greenberg: was convinced that the SFPD had it. They can take care of it. We don't need to have external, you know, higher-up, federal troop boots on the ground to help.

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Richie Greenberg: Okay. And what happened eventually, after that, the event went on, it was apparently okay. Apparently, there was no problem, there were no major or even minor scuffles, as far as I know.

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Richie Greenberg: But then, once it was over, and the event all, you know, cleared out of town.

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Richie Greenberg: it went right back to the drug dealer and the drug usage, and all of that. It went right back to how it was before. And so, if you see, comments online from media and elsewhere, they're saying, this seems to be the pattern. A major event comes to San Francisco.

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Richie Greenberg: People panic, they do what they can to, to clean up the streets, and as soon as the event is over, it goes right back to how it was. So…

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Richie Greenberg: Trump winds up, as we know, calling off surging the troops, surging the National Guard, much to our dismay, because we knew they had a lot

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Richie Greenberg: other, function other than just to guard Dreamforce and to make Benioff happy.

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Richie Greenberg: But, then…

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Richie Greenberg: the… it comes out last Thursday morning that, Trump called and had a phone conversation with Mayor Daniel Lurie, who then… Lurie kinda asked politely, this is how it goes,

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Richie Greenberg: that Trump was asked by Lurie politely to let him have a chance, that they can clean it up, they can handle it, and Trump said, sure, you go ahead, you take a shot at this. And,

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Richie Greenberg: the reaction, the way that the media and city hall officials spun this, is that it was a victory. They say it was like a, a,

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Richie Greenberg: They wound up fending off the menace from Trump.

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Richie Greenberg: And they won, and they prevented the National Guard from coming in. Now, I know, Erica, you and I, we don't look at that as being a victory.

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Richie Greenberg: Rather, it was a strange way to spin this, because in my mind, and in many people's minds.

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Richie Greenberg: This instead is Trump handing Lurie a rope to hang himself.

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Richie Greenberg: If…

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Richie Greenberg: If he doesn't perform, and I already don't think it's going to work. Now, I don't know about you, I already see, and I feel this was just a temporary reprieve.

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Richie Greenberg: What do you think, Erica?

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Erica Sandberg: Yeah, first of all, it would have been very embarrassing to have Trump's troops on the ground, in San Francisco for the administration, because it would have

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Erica Sandberg: It would have demonstrated that the city is not able to handle its own, crime situation.

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Erica Sandberg: And that would have been embarrassing. So, okay, there you go. There's that, there's that. They didn't want it because of that. They also didn't want to have their toes stepped on. They also didn't want to have the look of it. It just… it was just very distasteful to people. So, when Daniel Lurie did…

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Erica Sandberg: I'm putting air quotes, negotiate with Donald Trump, and was able to walk away with a, okay, you have, you have a reprieve, you know, I personally, I sort of like the, you get a fix-it ticket.

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Richie Greenberg: I heard you, you know, fix-it ticket, yeah.

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Erica Sandberg: It… it's not… What is going to happen from here?

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Erica Sandberg: We don't know. I think it's really important not to speculate too much.

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Erica Sandberg: You gotta stick to the facts, to the truth. What we know, we know right now, that the National Guard is not here. What we know is that our crime continues to spiral out of control.

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Richie Greenberg: How do we know? How do we know that it's still spiraling?

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Erica Sandberg: Because you can see it. You can go down any day of the week between those hours, the 6 to 6, and you'll see it like a movie show, right? The movie starts at 8 p.m, you go to 8pm, and that's when it starts. You know it. It's clockwork. It happens every single day.

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Richie Greenberg: Now, we're not talking about… we're not talking about, like, petty theft, or someone,

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Richie Greenberg: You know, getting mugged, walking home from work. This is… this is a different kind.

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Erica Sandberg: It's… it's completely different, and it's… It's just mayhem.

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Richie Greenberg: And this is why it's so helpful that we have those citizen journalists that are on the street at night, on their bicycle, just, you know, hiding in the shadows, and then going through certain areas, recording what's happening, and it's still… this is the zombie.

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Erica Sandberg: I gotta tell you, it is… it is bizarre to me that the administration has not actually said, hey, listen, thank you.

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Erica Sandberg: Frisco Live415. Thank you, JJ.

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Richie Greenberg: Those are, those are, those are a couple.

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Erica Sandberg: He's right.

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Richie Greenberg: of these individuals who were going out, that's their names, who were… Correct. Twitter handles who are going out and recording.

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Erica Sandberg: Yeah, so that they haven't said, not just thank you, but let's bring you on board. Let's give you a stipend. Let's figure out how we can work together so that we can all achieve this common goal, which is, a safe

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Erica Sandberg: play, fun… Wonderful atmosphere for everybody, including people who live in these really downtrodden areas.

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Erica Sandberg: It… they are, they are…

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Erica Sandberg: low-income immigrants, you know, a lot of immigrants live there, a lot of people who are disabled and elderly and families. We know they deserve the safety that people in Pacific Heights, Knob Hill, Russian Hill, etc. have. So, really, it would be doing a good thing to go to work hand-in-hand with them.

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Erica Sandberg: also Richie.

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Richie Greenberg: Yeah.

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Erica Sandberg: in hand with the federal government if they're offering assistance. If they say, listen, we can help you… we can help you close that gap that you clearly have right now, until

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Erica Sandberg: Until you do get good, solid police officers on the street, we can be that temporary measure that is going to be beneficial.

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Richie Greenberg: Now, what's really, really interesting about that, and something just came to mind. Well, first of all, in what Trump said to Lurie, Trump said.

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Richie Greenberg: We can clean this up much faster, stronger.

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Richie Greenberg: more effectively using federal laws that you guys in San Francisco have… don't have these laws to be able to

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Richie Greenberg: Arrest and clean up.

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Richie Greenberg: they… they don't care. Lori and others, they don't care that there is a way to do it more effectively. But second, using your example, what you were just saying.

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Richie Greenberg: This comes to mind. Think about natural disasters, thinking about everyone, you know, over the years has always pointed to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans years ago. What was it, almost 20 years ago now, or more?

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Richie Greenberg: So, can you imagine a disaster like that?

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Richie Greenberg: Where you have devastation, deaths, and injury, and people that have lost their homes and businesses.

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Richie Greenberg: and the mayor of that city back then saying to the feds, FEMA,

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Richie Greenberg: No, we don't need your assistance.

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Erica Sandberg: Exactly.

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Richie Greenberg: We got it.

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Erica Sandberg: That's a great analogy, yeah. I think that it's… it's really foolhardy and ego-driven.

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Richie Greenberg: We don't want…

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Erica Sandberg: help from you because you're from that side. You're these type of people. Well, listen, this is… let's do another analogy, is people are falling through a hole in the ice, and they're drowning. They're drowning in ice-cold water. Somebody reaches down.

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Erica Sandberg: offers a rope or a hand and says, I'm gonna pull you up.

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Erica Sandberg: Do you stop to think.

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Erica Sandberg: okay, well, what is this person… what is their politics? Even to the point of what do they hope to gain? No, you get out of that freezing cold water, you get back up on your feet, and you say, listen, first of all, thank you. Second of all, I don't agree with you on this, that, and the other.

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Erica Sandberg: But I appreciate your help, now we can kind of move forward and we can work together. So, saying no is a very weird thing to me.

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Richie Greenberg: Preemptively.

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Erica Sandberg: that. It goes beyond that. What I'm seeing right now…

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Erica Sandberg: And I think this is really clear to the people of San Francisco, and I think the people of the world as well, anybody who's watching this, is that people who are objecting

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Erica Sandberg: are the authorities. They're not residents, workers, small business owners, visitors. They are the officials, the authorities.

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Richie Greenberg: San Francisco City Hall elected officials.

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Erica Sandberg: And they're the ones who are saying, we don't want this, this is really, objectionable, this is horrific.

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Erica Sandberg: and it's… it's… and I am on… I am part of an advisory forum to the chief of police, and I'm seeing it there going, well, we don't… we don't want… we don't want our authority to be challenged. Like, how dare you?

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Richie Greenberg: anxiety.

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Erica Sandberg: Who are you working for?

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Richie Greenberg: Exactly.

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Erica Sandberg: Right? How absolute… I find that so abhorrent, and so gross, just grotesque.

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Richie Greenberg: So let, let's, let's…

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Erica Sandberg: you are. Basically, a who do you think you are, that you, you think that you shouldn't get questioned, you think that you shouldn't have some oversight, you think that you shouldn't have, have,

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Erica Sandberg: somebody…

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Erica Sandberg: ripping away some of your power if what you have done has been disastrous? How dare you? And people talk about this whole No Kings thing. They're… they're acting.

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Richie Greenberg: We're the kings. Who's the kings? Yeah.

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Erica Sandberg: Right, exactly. They're acting like, well, what we… well, you know, we can't be challenged.

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Richie Greenberg: So, so, with… yeah, how dare you?

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Richie Greenberg: Now, on that point, let's expand a little bit on that.

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Richie Greenberg: So, you have the elected officials.

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Richie Greenberg: You have the leadership of City Hall, of San Francisco City Hall, you have

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Richie Greenberg: the state of California, the governor, the, the attorney general.

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Richie Greenberg: you have the district attorney here in San Francisco, and they all have

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Richie Greenberg: pretty much said the same thing, that not only do they, as you were saying, they don't want federal intervention, but we've even seen these threats, these actual threats.

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Richie Greenberg: Verbal threats, written threats, saying…

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Richie Greenberg: If National Guard is deployed here in California, in San Francisco, we will arrest those federal agents if they break local law.

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Richie Greenberg: And similarly, we see this harebrained, legislation that was signed, that was created by Scott Weiner, State Senator Scott Weiner, and signed by Newsom, that is saying that any of these agents have to be unmasked.

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Richie Greenberg: And the immediate response from the federal government is, whatever it is you want to say, whatever it is you want to do, it doesn't apply to the feds.

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Erica Sandberg: Right.

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Richie Greenberg: And so…

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Richie Greenberg: after all of this went down a couple of days ago, where Trump said, we're not going to bring in, we're not going to surge the National Guard.

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Richie Greenberg: And then the response from City Hall, including Mayor Lurie, was to have… was to have a press conference where they were all standing, you saw the video, where they're all standing, like, their chests puffed out like this.

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Richie Greenberg: As if they were, like, middle school nerds trying to pretend to be tough in this video, where they were saying, you know, we don't need you, we don't want you, and…

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Richie Greenberg: that we've been preparing for this scenario, where the feds were going to come in for the last 10 months.

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Richie Greenberg: Which is really bizarre.

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Richie Greenberg: Rather than saying, we've been working to clear the streets and clean up and prevent

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Richie Greenberg: What was the most recent San Francisco Chief Medical Officer's tally of deaths due to overdose between 2019 to now, October 2025, is 4,317.

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Richie Greenberg: 4,317 individuals have died because of overdose. You know, to be fair, not necessarily under Lurie, but the previous administration, but still, there's all of these deaths here, all of the…

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Richie Greenberg: Everything related to everything with drugs and fentanyl, and the arrogance, and this ridiculous chest-puffing, saying, we got it.

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Richie Greenberg: And then the threats, the actual threats that the federal officers, federal agents, if they are sent in, if they do anything wrong that is against local or state

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Richie Greenberg: law that they will be arrested. So, this came down, this came down, Thursday late afternoon.

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Erica Sandberg: Yeah, it's totally arrogant, but… and on top of that, it's also insulting, because it's turning to the people of San Francisco, and the world, but let's just say to the people of San Francisco, saying, you don't matter.

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Erica Sandberg: You do not matter.

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Richie Greenberg: What's going on?

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Erica Sandberg: in your communities, on your streets, at your schools, in your businesses, does not matter. We matter. Our jobs matter. Our reputation as so-called leaders matters. Now, not everybody is as bad as each other, you know, there are some who are a lot worse.

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Richie Greenberg: You know.

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Erica Sandberg: So I'm gonna give some people a break in terms of, like, I'm not gonna point fingers at specific people.

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Erica Sandberg: However, I think that everybody in the administration does need to take a look at the,

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Erica Sandberg: signal that they're throwing out. What do you think this says to the people of San Francisco? It says, as I said before.

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Erica Sandberg: You're inconsequential.

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Erica Sandberg: We are the ones who are deciding what's going on, and we are the ones who we care about.

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Richie Greenberg: Right, so these are the officials, the San Francisco officials, saying.

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Richie Greenberg: We're the ones that decide what's best for you.

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Erica Sandberg: Did they… did they say, okay, I'm gonna throw this out to you, Richie. Did… did… what was the message? Was the message, hey, listen, everybody, you live in the Tenderloin, in the Civic Center, and South America, and 16th, and blah blah blah. Listen, all of you wonderful people, you people who matter, you matter, and because of you.

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Erica Sandberg: We're gonna get this under control.

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Richie Greenberg: We're doing. Right, that would be the right thing to say. Right. That would have been the right thing to say 10 months ago.

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Erica Sandberg: Right, it did not happen, it is not happening, they're not saying it, they're not even alluding to it. What

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Erica Sandberg: On what planet is this okay?

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Richie Greenberg: Right. It's not okay, not on, not on, not on our planet.

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Erica Sandberg: They're…

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Richie Greenberg: So, so…

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Erica Sandberg: no, their message should never have been, go away, federal, assistance. It should have been, here's why we don't need you, because we're doing X, Y, and Z, and this is how we're helping, if you are, in fact, helping, but you're not.

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Richie Greenberg: And also, not only to say, go away, feds, we don't need you, but then we're going to prosecute you if you show up and you do something we don't like.

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Erica Sandberg: It's bluster. It's so much bluster, and it's so… it's… it's so, it's just ugly. It's ugly. It makes people look like petulant children. Yep. I… I don't like it. You don't like it. I think a lot of people don't like it. It's… it's…

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Erica Sandberg: Very unseemly, and very sad that.

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Richie Greenberg: So what wound up happening, after that is, you know, same day, within a few hours after the mayor's press conference and funny little video stance, there was a letter sent to

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Richie Greenberg: four very prominent, officials, public officials here in the city and the state of California from

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Richie Greenberg: Todd Blanch, who was the Deputy Attorney General of the United States. He works under Pam Bondi, the Attorney General of the United States. So he wrote a letter to Gavin Newsom, the governor, to Rob Bonta, who was the Attorney General of California, to Nancy Pelosi, who we all know.

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Richie Greenberg: and to District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, our Brooke Jenkins, who was the… very effective prosecutor.

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Richie Greenberg: a real prosecutor that took, took over the reins of San Francisco's DA office after the recall of Chessa Bodine.

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Richie Greenberg: And so she was also… Brooke Jenkins was also named in this letter. It's a… it's a warning from the federal government telling these four elected officials, basically, to shut up.

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Richie Greenberg: Stop threatening federal officers. Federal supremacy.

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Richie Greenberg: They have the right to do their job in their legal, federal way. You cannot be threatening, don't touch them, don't threaten them. And then within a couple of hours after that notice, that letter came out, Pam Bondi, the United States Attorney General, was on TV,

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Richie Greenberg: pretty much, reiterating what was in this letter, and additionally saying, specifically talking to Nancy Pelosi, and

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Richie Greenberg: that DA, Brooke Jenkins, as she said, that DA of San Francisco, to stop, to back off, to stop with this nonsense, unenforceable, unlawful.

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Richie Greenberg: Threats against federal agents.

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Erica Sandberg: Yeah. No, I mean, certainly it's… it was…

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Richie Greenberg: It's bizarre, it's insane. It's totally… for this to even happen is incredibly insane. That's, like, the worst of the worst, like, you can't… you can't sit here, you can't join us, we don't want you in our club.

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Erica Sandberg: Yeah, and I, I think…

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Erica Sandberg: this is… it's a good opportunity right now, Richie, for us to say, well, why don't we just start imploring and tell… telling…

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Erica Sandberg: The people who do have the authority to make decisions, to take their binoculars and refocus them, because they're really, really out of focus right now.

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Richie Greenberg: Yeah, yeah.

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Erica Sandberg: Right, they're looking at all sorts of things that aren't important and aren't going to make a positive difference to our city, and kind of grab them by the outside and just go…

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Richie Greenberg: Focus in.

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Erica Sandberg: So everything is super clear.

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Richie Greenberg: Erica…

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Richie Greenberg: Did you… did you notice online, because in case people don't already know this, but Erica and I, we are very, very…

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Richie Greenberg: we're really all over Axe Twitter, you know? That is where we mostly live in terms of interaction on a… almost, sometimes even an hourly

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Richie Greenberg: or more, we're tweeting, we're posting, we're reacting. Did you notice, after Mayor Lurie's press conference the other day, that there were a multitude of people that were all cheering Lurie

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Richie Greenberg: over the top.

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Richie Greenberg: there was, I forgot who it was, someone that I follow, who said, Mayor Lurie is now

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Richie Greenberg: This was automatic, he wins re-election. He's the best mayor that San Francisco ever had in history.

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Richie Greenberg: And I'm like, what are you on? What are you talking about? How can you come out with such an obvious

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Richie Greenberg: Puff Piece tweet.

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Richie Greenberg: So, did someone pay you to do that?

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Erica Sandberg: Okay, I have to say, first of all.

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Erica Sandberg: If people didn't want troops in the city, then yes, of course they're going to be happy. If people wanted Daniel Lurie to step up and be strong and

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Erica Sandberg: show Trump what he can do, okay, you're gonna be happy. If he's bringing businesses into San Francisco and being that cheerleader, you're going to be happy. There are things that you can just look at and do, and you could go, okay, well, this makes me really happy. I am not a…

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Erica Sandberg: anti-Daniel Lurie person. I'm just not. I think there are great things that he's doing, and I think he's absolutely failing in other ways.

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Erica Sandberg: But… Yeah, the intensity of the, aggrandizing.

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Richie Greenberg: But… Yeah, that was, that was way over the top.

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Erica Sandberg: I do. But I think what's the most important thing right now is for… we are in a time crunch. We don't know when

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Erica Sandberg: Donald Trump is going to change his mind, because it was almost like a little threatening

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Erica Sandberg: little segment at the end of his statement, which is, stay tuned, because it did come with a, a stopwatch. I don't know what that stopwatch is. You don't either, none of us do, because as we are not privy to it. I'm not even sure if Daniel Leary has been privy to it, you know, about…

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Richie Greenberg: Yeah, but even if he has an idea, he's certainly not going to tell the public. That's right, that's right.

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Erica Sandberg: But it does seem pretty clear, based on what Donald Trump did right, that this is a temporary reprieve. If the city does not get its

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Erica Sandberg: junk together, then there is going to be

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Erica Sandberg: what you did not want, so that will happen. So we shall see. Now, I have not seen any change on the street. You have…

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Richie Greenberg: Neither have I.

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Erica Sandberg: We change on the street.

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Richie Greenberg: I haven't yet.

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Erica Sandberg: People on Twitter, and X, rather, have not posted, oh, look at this!

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Erica Sandberg: Yay!

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Erica Sandberg: Or there's even a little incremental, positive change. No, not yet. So I don't know when this is gonna happen, and, if it doesn't, then I just say, you know, we're just gonna have to prepare.

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Erica Sandberg: That's right. I think, also, that's also what Daniel Lurie did say in the presser, which is, we need to prepare for anything. The anything is, we don't get this job done

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Erica Sandberg: That means someone's gonna come in and do the job for us.

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Erica Sandberg: There you go.

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Richie Greenberg: But it shouldn't… it should not mean prepare for anything, meaning we are now going to fight back against Trump, against the federal intervention. That should not be what it is, because that takes…

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Richie Greenberg: planning, it takes financial resources, it takes taxpayers' money. Basically, taxpayers are paying for city hall elected officials to pay for plans to now fight… that's not how it is. It's not a…

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Erica Sandberg: Yeah, that's true, but I also want to say that the, this… we can't conflate issues, right? When it comes to.

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Erica Sandberg: assistance on our street. We're not talking about ICE going to Home Depots and rounding people up who are, you know, whatever your thoughts are about that. That's not what this is about. This is about stopping

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Erica Sandberg: crime. This is about creating safer communities for people who do come here to work. This is truly about crime abatement, and that… that is a very different issue than.

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Richie Greenberg: Very true.

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Erica Sandberg: like.

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Erica Sandberg: pounding on their desks and saying, we must not have this in our community! Who are you fighting for, my dear? Who are you fighting for? What are you fighting for? Right? These are two separate issues.

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Richie Greenberg: Because right up the block, right up the block are these transnational narco-terrorists that are slinging their fentanyl, killing people one, two, three a day, and that's okay. You're fighting to keep that there? That makes no sense at all.

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Erica Sandberg: So it's only… right, so… so you have people like Jackie Fielder and Shimon Walton and Connie Chan, who are, they get… they get all puffed up at this moment. They're like, oh my gosh, we're not going to have… I…

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Erica Sandberg: Focus.

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Erica Sandberg: Focus on what's important, because what's important is you are a supervisor responsible for having a clean and safe community for everyone. And it is, again, gone terribly, terribly out of focus.

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Richie Greenberg: Really? Really? You really want to do that? You really want to say that? You really did… I… there we go.

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Richie Greenberg: Okay, so on that note, Erica, we will wrap up another wonderful episode of Really San Francisco.

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Richie Greenberg: And, you know, I've got my fingers crossed, my toes crossed, everything crossed, that, City Hall officials got the message. They got the reprieve, they got the fix-it ticket, as you keep bringing up.

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Richie Greenberg: And, we're just hoping, we're rooting.

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Erica Sandberg: Yeah, I mean, this is not without hope. This is all with hope, which is, look, you have time. You have a short period of time, but you've got time. Get it together.

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Richie Greenberg: Get it together.

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Erica Sandberg: Just figure it out. If you can't get that plane.

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Erica Sandberg: from the runway up in the air, you gotta change pilots, or add another pilot. You gotta figure it out. Figure it out. So, that's my hope, that

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Erica Sandberg: the city does figure it out and actually get it done. Not prepare.

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Richie Greenberg: And then we can have a real party.

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Erica Sandberg: That's right.

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Richie Greenberg: Okay. All right, thanks everyone for joining. Again, you can go… you can go to greenbergsandberg.com. This is Erica Sandberg. I'm Richie Greenberg. Thanks again for listening to Really San Francisco, and we look forward to chatting again with you very soon. Take care.

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Erica Sandberg: Alright.

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Richie Greenberg: Alright, so how's everything?