Nancy Pelosi, one among President Trump’s most vocal critics in his first time period, has principally held her fireplace this time round, largely out of deference to the Democratic leaders who succeeded her.
However that modified this week after Mr. Trump struck immediately at Ms. Pelosi’s native legacy and the liberal metropolis that she adores.
The Republican president ordered the federal authorities to “remove to the utmost extent” the capabilities of the Presidio Belief, one among Ms. Pelosi’s proudest San Francisco accomplishments as a Democratic stalwart in Congress.
The belief oversees the Presidio, a former navy outpost within the metropolis’s northwest nook that’s identified for its lush grounds, scenic mountain climbing trails and eclectic assortment of companies in repurposed military buildings, all with gorgeous views of the Golden Gate Bridge. Residents take into account it a metropolis treasure, and vacationers flock there for the bayside seashores and parks.
“What’s the goal of this?” Ms. Pelosi requested in an interview Thursday morning. “It’s a distraction.”
“We can’t let our nation be distracted by what he’s doing and what his co-president, Musk, is doing,” she added, referring to Elon Musk, the top of Mr. Trump’s so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity.
Ms. Pelosi was identified for goading Mr. Trump in his first time period, even ripping up the pages of his State of the Union speech in 2020. When he was elected once more in November, Ms. Pelosi knew that San Francisco may very well be focused, given his open disdain for her and the town that she represents.
Many San Francisco residents awakened on Thursday to be taught that the Presidio had change into the newest mark in a protracted listing of cuts pursued by Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk. The president issued an govt order late Wednesday titled “Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy” that listed 4 “pointless” entities, with the Presidio Belief on the high of the listing. The teams have two weeks to point out that they’re utilizing no federal cash aside from the funds required by statute to be spent.
Republicans have taken specific problem with a $200 million grant that Ms. Pelosi secured for the Presidio in her last yr as Home speaker. The cash, a part of the Inflation Discount Act, went towards utility upgrades and infrastructure and has already been allotted, based on Lisa Petrie, a spokeswoman for the Presidio Belief. Ms. Pelosi stated that the cash was deserved as a result of Republicans had beforehand given related grants to different nationwide parks however had excluded the Presidio.
Ms. Pelosi is assured, she stated Thursday, that the Presidio Belief and its 1,491 acres of parks, residential neighborhoods and companies will survive simply nice by counting on their very own working income and fund-raising {dollars}.
“I don’t take it personally if he needs to insult one thing as progressive and fantastic because the Presidio,” she stated. “There are some individuals who don’t consider in city parks. We consider in city parks, and that’s why we have now the Presidio.”
At an look on the San Francisco-Marin Meals Financial institution on Thursday afternoon to emphasise how Republican finances cuts would damage packages for the poor, Ms. Pelosi let free her scorn for Mr. Trump.
She repeatedly referred to the president as “what’s his title” and riffed on his current declaration on Reality Social that he’s a king.
“King of what?” she requested. “It’s the emperor who has no garments, so far as I’m involved.”
The federal authorities transferred the previous military publish to the Nationwide Park Service in October 1994. Two years later, Ms. Pelosi labored in Congress with Senator Dianne Feinstein, her pal from San Francisco, to create the Presidio Belief to function it. The laws required that the belief be self-sufficient by 2013 or danger having the land offered off.
The plan labored. Previous navy buildings had been transformed into housing the place 1000’s of individuals dwell. Others had been changed into a wide range of standard companies that included a theater, a bowling alley, yoga studios, a trampoline park, a resort and workplaces.
There are actually playgrounds and colleges. And the brand new Presidio Tunnel Tops park, with a plaza named for Ms. Pelosi, has proved tremendously standard.
The Walt Disney Museum is there. So are the headquarters of George Lucas’s Lucasfilm Ltd., with a Yoda statue perched out entrance.
The Presidio Belief collects cash by renting out these buildings and internet hosting occasions similar to weddings and company conferences, which has been sufficient to permit the park to function with out federal cash. It has additionally acquired non-public donations over time, together with funds from Mimi Haas, a billionaire inheritor to the Levi Strauss fortune and the mom of Mayor Daniel Lurie.
At a thirtieth anniversary celebration final fall, Ms. Pelosi stood earlier than a smiling crowd, her hot-pink go well with popping in opposition to the blue blazers of native businessmen and the olive inexperienced uniforms of park rangers. She noticed that three many years earlier, some Republicans had supported her laws establishing the Presidio Belief.
“As you go searching, it’s pristine,” she stated. “It’s lovely, and it took a village.”
Mr. Trump does have the facility to reshape the board of the Presidio Belief, simply as he did with the Kennedy Heart in Washington. In his first time period, he appointed Michael Savage, a conservative radio speak present host, to the Presidio Belief board — an appointment that Mr. Biden later reversed.
Staff of the Presidio Belief acquired emails late Wednesday evening from Jean Fraser, the belief’s chief govt, telling them that she believes the White Home Workplace of Administration and Finances doesn’t perceive that the park is self-sufficient.
“I’m so sorry for the nervousness this should trigger you,” the e-mail learn. “Be further type to your self and to your colleagues as we undergo this collectively.”
Presidio Belief workers have averted Mr. Trump’s job cuts as a result of whereas they’re federal workers, they don’t seem to be among the many civil service positions that the president has focused. Some Nationwide Park Service workers who work with them to look after the grounds and the wildlife have misplaced their positions up to now a number of days.
Zoe Slocum and her household, who’ve lived within the Presidio for 15 years, have loved the world a lot that they’ve recruited buddies to dwell close by. It’s a place the place kids really feel protected operating round collectively, neighbors alternate butter and sugar, the lawns are well-manicured and the streets are stored clear, Ms. Slocum stated. She identified that there are a number of non-public colleges, a golf course and a YMCA.
“All of the issues that Trump purports to like,” she stated. “After all, Trump has a vendetta in opposition to Nancy Pelosi, however it is unnecessary.”
Ms. Pelosi, 84, has had a tough few months. After Ms. Harris misplaced the presidential race, Ms. Pelosi fell throughout a visit to Luxembourg in December and needed to have a hip changed. She recuperated at her residence in Pacific Heights, close to the sting of the Presidio, till she returned to Washington earlier this month.
She not too long ago got here again to San Francisco to assist look after her husband, Paul Pelosi, who was launched from the hospital on Tuesday after he acquired a kidney transplant from the couple’s daughter, Jacqueline.
On Thursday, Ms. Pelosi didn’t wish to dwell on her private woes (she stated, with a sigh, that she was doing “so-so”) and needed to focus as a substitute on rebuking Mr. Trump and different Republicans for slashing packages that she stated had been essential to on a regular basis Individuals.
Others had been extra blunt of their perception that Mr. Trump was personally attacking Ms. Pelosi.
“The Presidio Belief is a large success story,” stated Scott Wiener, a Democratic state senator from San Francisco. “Trump is a vindictive narcissist, and if he’s not capable of profit or earn money from one thing, he needs to tear it down, significantly if it has to do with San Francisco or Nancy Pelosi.”
The Presidio Belief shouldn’t be the one San Francisco entity on the federal chopping block. Mr. Trump’s administration has created an inventory of “non-core” federal belongings focused on the market, The San Francisco Chronicle reported on Thursday.
Amongst them: the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Constructing.
Kitty Bennett contributed analysis.
