Nancy Pelosi, certainly one of President Trump’s maximum vocal critics in his first time period, has most commonly held her hearth this time round, in large part out of deference to the Democratic leaders who succeeded her.
However that modified this week after Mr. Trump struck without delay at Ms. Pelosi’s native legacy and the liberal town that she adores.
The Republican president ordered the government to “do away with to the utmost extent” the purposes of the Presidio Agree with, certainly one of Ms. Pelosi’s proudest San Francisco accomplishments as a Democratic stalwart in Congress.
The consider oversees the Presidio, a former army outpost within the town’s northwest nook this is identified for its lush grounds, scenic mountaineering trails and eclectic number of companies in repurposed military structures, all with shocking perspectives of the Golden Gate Bridge. Citizens imagine it a town treasure, and vacationers flock there for the bayside seashores and parks.
“What’s the objective of this?” Ms. Pelosi requested in an interview Thursday morning. “It’s a distraction.”
“We can’t let our nation be distracted by way of what he’s doing and what his co-president, Musk, is doing,” she added, regarding Elon Musk, the top of Mr. Trump’s so-called Division of Govt Potency.
Ms. Pelosi was once 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 once elected once more in November, Ms. Pelosi knew that San Francisco might be centered, given his open disdain for her and the town that she represents.
Many San Francisco citizens aroused from sleep on Thursday to be told that the Presidio had grow to be the newest mark in a protracted record of cuts pursued by way of Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk. The president issued an government order past due Wednesday titled “Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy” that indexed 4 “needless” entities, with the Presidio Agree with on the most sensible of the record. The teams have two weeks to turn that they’re the use of no federal cash rather than the finances required by way of statute to be spent.
Republicans have taken explicit factor with a $200 million grant that Ms. Pelosi secured for the Presidio in her ultimate 12 months as Space speaker. The cash, a part of the Inflation Relief Act, went towards software upgrades and infrastructure and has already been allotted, in keeping with Lisa Petrie, a spokeswoman for the Presidio Agree with. Ms. Pelosi mentioned that the cash was once deserved as a result of Republicans had up to now given an identical grants to different nationwide parks however had excluded the Presidio.
Ms. Pelosi is assured, she mentioned Thursday, that the Presidio Agree with and its 1,491 acres of parks, residential neighborhoods and companies will continue to exist simply positive by way of depending on their very own running earnings and fund-raising greenbacks.
“I don’t take it individually if he needs to insult one thing as leading edge and beautiful because the Presidio,” she mentioned. “There are some individuals who don’t imagine in city parks. We imagine in city parks, and that’s why now we have the Presidio.”
The government transferred the previous military publish to the Nationwide Park Provider in October 1994. Two years later, Ms. Pelosi labored in Congress with Senator Dianne Feinstein, her good friend from San Francisco, to create the Presidio Agree with to perform it. The law required that the consider be self-sufficient by way of 2013 or chance having the land bought off.
The plan labored. Previous army structures had been transformed into housing the place hundreds of other folks are living. Others had been become quite a few standard companies that incorporated a theater, a bowling alley, yoga studios, a trampoline park, a lodge and workplaces.
There at the moment are playgrounds and faculties. And the brand new Presidio Tunnel Tops park, with a plaza named for Ms. Pelosi, has proved vastly 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 Agree with collects cash by way of renting out the ones structures and website hosting occasions equivalent to weddings and company conferences, which has been sufficient to permit the park to perform with out federal cash. It has additionally won non-public donations through the years, together with finances from Mimi Haas, a billionaire inheritor to the Levi Strauss fortune and the mum of Mayor Daniel Lurie.
At a thirtieth anniversary birthday party remaining fall, Ms. Pelosi stood ahead of a smiling crowd, her hot-pink go well with popping towards the blue blazers of native businessmen and the olive inexperienced uniforms of park rangers. She noticed that 3 a long time previous, some Republicans had supported her law setting up the Presidio Agree with.
“As you go searching, it’s pristine,” she mentioned. “It’s gorgeous, and it took a village.”
Mr. Trump does have the facility to reshape the board of the Presidio Agree with, simply as he did with the Kennedy Heart in Washington. In his first time period, he appointed Michael Savage, a conservative radio communicate display host, to the Presidio Agree with board — an appointment that Mr. Biden later reversed.
Staff of the Presidio Agree with won emails past due Wednesday night time from Jean Fraser, the consider’s leader government, telling them that she believes the White Space Workplace of Control and Price range does now not needless to say the park is self-sufficient.
“I’m so sorry for the anxiousness this should reason you,” the e-mail learn. “Be further sort to your self and for your colleagues as we undergo this in combination.”
Presidio Agree with staff have have shyed away from Mr. Trump’s process cuts as a result of whilst they’re federal staff, they don’t seem to be some of the civil provider positions that the president has centered. Some Nationwide Park Provider staff who paintings with them to take care of the grounds and the flora and fauna have misplaced their positions prior to now a number of days.
Zoe Slocum and her circle of relatives, who’ve lived within the Presidio for 15 years, have loved the world such a lot that they have got recruited buddies to are living close by. This is a position the place youngsters really feel secure working round in combination, neighbors change butter and sugar, the lawns are well-manicured and the streets are stored blank, Ms. Slocum mentioned. She identified that there are a number of non-public faculties, a golfing path and a YMCA.
“The entire issues that Trump purports to like,” she mentioned. “In fact, Trump has a vendetta towards Nancy Pelosi, nevertheless it is not sensible.”
Ms. Pelosi, 84, has had a coarse few months. After Ms. Harris misplaced the presidential race, Ms. Pelosi fell right through a commute to Luxembourg in December and needed to have a hip changed. She recuperated at her house in Pacific Heights, close to the threshold of the Presidio, till she returned to Washington previous this month.
She just lately got here again to San Francisco to lend a hand take care of her husband, Paul Pelosi, who was once launched from the health center on Tuesday after he won a kidney transplant from the couple’s daughter, Jacqueline.
On Thursday, Ms. Pelosi didn’t wish to reside on her non-public woes (she mentioned, with a sigh, that she was once doing “so-so”) and sought after to focal point as an alternative on rebuking Mr. Trump and different Republicans for slashing systems that she mentioned had been an important to on a regular basis American citizens.
Others had been extra blunt of their trust that Mr. Trump was once individually attacking Ms. Pelosi.
“The Presidio Agree with is a large good fortune tale,” mentioned Scott Wiener, a Democratic state senator from San Francisco. “Trump is a vindictive narcissist, and if he’s now not ready to learn or generate profits from one thing, he needs to rip it down, in particular if it has to do with San Francisco or Nancy Pelosi.”
The Presidio Agree with isn’t the one San Francisco entity at the federal slicing block. Mr. Trump’s management has created a listing of “non-core” federal property centered on the market, The San Francisco Chronicle reported on Thursday.
Amongst them: the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Construction.
