Politics
After losing reelection, San Francisco mayor says she leaves office 'a winner'
SAN FRANCISCO — Mayor London Breed may have lost reelection, but after more than six years at the helm of one of America’s most iconic cities, she says she will leave office next month as a champion.
“No matter what the results said, I’m still a winner,” Breed said in an interview this week. “The fact that I have come out of the most problematic circumstances of San Francisco to be mayor, and I’m here, and I have been able to serve, it is an absolute privilege.”
Indeed, it has been a meteoric rise to the top for Breed, 50.
Raised in poverty by her grandmother in the Western Addition, at the time one of San Francisco’s toughest neighborhoods, Breed was elected to the powerful Board of Supervisors in 2012 after serving as executive director of the African American Art and Culture Complex. She made history in June 2018 when she won a special election as the first Black female mayor of San Francisco after the unexpected death of Mayor Ed Lee.
The years that followed would be defined by crises: a deadly pandemic; the explosive availability of fentanyl and corresponding surge in overdose deaths; the twin plagues of rampant homelessness and untreated mental illness; the racial justice protests of 2020; and in the wake of COVID-era closures, a crushing rise in retail theft and collapse of the downtown economy.
“I had to deal with crisis after crisis after crisis,” Breed said.
Her track record in the face of these challenges became a decisive factor in the mayor’s race, a hard-fought competition among Breed and four other top Democrats. Breed lost to Daniel Lurie, 47, a nonprofit executive and heir to the Levi Strauss family fortune who has never held elected office.
Lurie seized on voter disillusionment with brazen retail thefts, homeless encampments and open-air drug use that made San Francisco a favorite punching bag of right-wing pundits and President-elect Donald Trump. Lurie pitched himself as a political outsider whom voters could rely on to usher in a new era of accountability and good governance.
Though Breed has never been a bleeding-heart progressive, she tacked right in recent years, championing policies to more aggressively move homeless people off the streets and give police more authority and resources to tackle crime. She said she feels she is leaving office just as “everything is starting to come together.”
Violent crime rates have fallen over the last year, with homicides down 34%, robberies down 22%, burglaries down 12% and motor vehicle theft down 21%, according to the San Francisco Police Department.
In summer, Breed launched a campaign to clear homeless encampments, an effort she said is paying off with 60% fewer tents across the city. Fatal overdoses have fallen for six consecutive months after hitting a high of 810 deaths last year.
Susie Tompkins Buell, a prominent Democratic donor and staunch supporter of Breed’s, said the mayor deserves credit for effectively leading San Francisco through an unusually difficult period. “I think she handled some serious problems very well, and I think there were new problems, problems we had never experienced before,” Buell said.
Buell applauded Breed’s decisiveness during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when she was one of the first big-city mayors to declare a state of emergency — a decision credited with saving thousands of lives.
“Nobody knew what to do, and everyone was scared and trying to do the right thing, and be bold and careful at the same time,” Buell said. “I know she gave it her all.”
But those early pandemic decisions were a distant memory for many voters when it came time to cast ballots this year. There was a grim sense that San Francisco had lost control of its street life — and some of its charm.
Lurie’s reputation as a “non-politician” almost certainly helped him win election. Though considered a political outsider, Lurie comes from one of San Francisco’s most influential families. He was born the son of a rabbi. His parents divorced when he was young, and his mother went on to marry Peter Haas, an heir to the founder of the Levi’s brand. Haas has since died, and Lurie and his mother are among the primary heirs.
Lurie spent nearly $9 million on his campaign, and his mother, Miriam Haas, contributed an additional $1 million to an independent expenditure committee backing his mayoral bid. The committee received millions more from tech titans and wealthy investors who saw in Lurie an opportunity to set the city on a new course after what they perceived as years of misdirection.
Breed said that heavy spending disadvantaged her campaign.
“It just was definitely very challenging to run the city, which is the priority, and then try to run a campaign against the kind of financial resources that were coming at me from a lot of different places,” she said.
The rise in tech sector influence has become a defining theme the last two years in an array of San Francisco elections. Breed is still weighing whether that shift will ultimately improve local politics. “There’s a lot of money that I wish could be poured into the things that are important in San Francisco,” she said. “It can’t just be about investing in a particular person. … It has to be about investing in a city regardless of who’s in charge.”
Breed’s critics say her loss was about more than campaign money.
Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, who ran against her for mayor as an old-school progressive, said she could be uncompromising and brusque in policy deliberations.
“It was kind of her way or the highway. And politics is the business of negotiating a compromise, which she did splendidly during COVID,” Peskin said. “But that was not everybody’s experience before COVID or after COVID, and that came back and bit her.”
In addition, he said, Breed’s shift away from the more liberal policies she championed when she served on the Board of Supervisors and in her early days as mayor cost her support from the progressive voters who helped elect her.
“She had alienated herself from liberal San Francisco along the way,” Peskin said. “And they abandoned her.”
James Taylor, a political science professor at the University of San Francisco and author of “Black Nationalism in the United States: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama,” agreed that Breed leaves office with a “mixed legacy.”
Breed governed the city during a challenging tenure, Taylor said, but some problems were of her own making. Her time in office was marred by a string of scandals that rocked city departments and nonprofits, undermining trust in government oversight.
Most recently, an investigation by the San Francisco Standard found that the head of the city’s Human Rights Commission funneled contracts worth more than $1 million to a nonprofit led by a man with whom she shared a home address and car — a close personal relationship she had not disclosed. The episode raised larger questions about how city funds have been managed for one of Breed’s signature programs, the Dream Keeper Initiative, which she established with the stated aim of directing more money into economic and cultural development in Black communities.
In the wake of the scandal, Taylor said, many Black San Franciscans felt the city lost the momentum for change they thought would come with her leadership.
“In other words, London Breed’s demise was self-inflicted,” he said. “The way this plane crashed, everything around it was destroyed.”
State Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat and one of Breed’s allies, disputed that conclusion, contending Breed has been remarkably successful despite historic challenges.
“The city has been through a lot in the last five years,” he said. “The voters ultimately decided they wanted to go in another direction. But she’s done a lot of good things.”
Among her accomplishments, Wiener said: Breed was a forceful advocate for legislation to make it easier to build homes, and a reliable ally for the LGBTQ+ community.
“She really deeply understands our community,” Wiener said.
Breed acknowledged Lurie will inherit a list of tribulations. Among the more pressing issues is a projected $876-million city budget deficit. The office vacancy rate remains stubbornly high nearly five years after the pandemic. The city schools system is on the brink of state takeover.
Her advice to Lurie? “It’s important not to be afraid of what constituency you’re going to piss off when you have to make life-and-death situation decisions here in the city that may be unpopular.”
That grit is critical as California prepares for Trump to resume office, Breed said.
“San Francisco has been a consistent target and will be used as an example,” she said. “San Francisco is going to be impacted whether we want it to be or not.”
Her election loss coincided with Trump’s victory over her friend and mentor, Vice President Kamala Harris. Breed said their defeats should prompt reflection inside the Democratic Party.
“I hope the Democratic Party tries to figure out a way to help more people, especially even people like me, be more successful,” she said.
Breed said she has been focused on a smooth mayoral transition and hasn’t had much time to think about life after the mayor’s office. She has spent nearly her whole life working, she said, starting with babysitting gigs and grocery runs for neighbors as a preteen. She’s eager — and a bit anxious — to figure out her next job.
“I don’t have no rich mama with money,” she said, laughing. “I gotta go make my own money.”
Politics
Trump-aligned House holdouts accused of holding ‘life-saving’ veterans bill ‘hostage’ over SAVE America Act
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A sweeping veterans package supporters describe as the largest expansion of veterans’ health care and benefits in more than a decade is expected to return to the House floor when lawmakers come back from the July recess, but backers warn the legislation could once again become collateral damage in the Republican standoff over the SAVE America Act.
The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act rolls roughly 60 veterans bills into a package that would dramatically expand veterans’ health care and benefits. At its core, the legislation would cement veterans’ access to community care outside the VA while increasing benefits for combat-wounded veterans, caregivers and Gold Star families, expanding mental health services and enacting dozens of additional reforms.
House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., told Fox News Digital he intends to bring the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act back for a vote as soon as the House reconvenes next week.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – MARCH 17: Eugene Simpson, 29, from Dale City, Virginia goes through physical therapy at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C. with Michael Minor, a kinesiotherapist with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs on March 17, 2006 in Washington, D.C., USA. (Photo by Jeff Hutchens/Getty Images) (Jeff Hutchens/Getty Images)
HOUSE CONSERVATIVES DERAIL GOP AGENDA IN SAVE AMERICA ACT SHOWDOWN
The legislation was held up last month after a group of House Republicans joined Democrats to defeat a procedural vote, stopping the House from taking up the bill.
“I’m feeling good as long as my members stay with us on the rule,” Bost said. “Right now, there’s some politics being played, not about this bill, but just in general.”
The bill became entangled in a broader House Republican fight over the SAVE America Act, legislation championed by President Donald Trump that would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.
On June 30, the House voted on H. Res. 1398, the procedural rule governing floor consideration of several bills, including the National Defense Authorization Act and the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act. The rule failed after 14 Republicans joined Democrats in opposition, preventing the House from taking up the veterans package and bringing floor business to a standstill. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., claimed to have voted against the rules vote in protest against House leadership’s handling of the SAVE America Act. As a result, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson sent the members home early.
Bost accused the holdouts of effectively putting veterans legislation on hold.
The US Department of Veterans Affairs building is seen in Washington, DC, on July 22, 2019. (Photo by Alastair Pike / AFP) (Photo credit should read ALASTAIR PIKE/AFP via Getty Images) (Photo credit should read ALASTAIR PIKE/AFP via Getty Image)
‘IT’S A MESS’: GOP TURNS ON HOUSE CONSERVATIVES AS VOTER ID BLOCKADE STALLS TRUMP’S AGENDA
“They’re holding all bills hostage,” Bost said. “They’re not voting for any rule. Any bill that has to pass a rule before it comes to the floor—which this bill does because of its size—can’t move.”
Although Bost said he supports the SAVE America Act and has voted for it three times, he argued the Senate’s failure to act should not stop the House from advancing unrelated legislation.
“I agree with that bill,” Bost said. “But the Senate still has to do their work. We don’t stop our work because the Senate isn’t doing it.”
With 23 legislative days left in the Congressional session, Concerned Veterans for America Strategic Director John Byrnes, a supporter of the bill, said time is of the essence.
“There are lots and lots of things that have to get done,” Byrnes told Fox News Digital. “There’s also the National Defense Authorization Act, which is a must pass every year, so these things eat up time. There’s requirements to have debate on these, which eat up session time.”
Byrnes argued that every procedural delay pushes other legislation further down the calendar.
“This bill will save lives in 2027,” Byrnes said. “If we lose veterans because they could have had faster, better access to health care, we’re never going to get those veterans back.”
Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill. ( )
TRUMP’S SAVE AMERICA ACT SHOWS SIGNS OF LIFE IN THE SENATE DESPITE REPUBLICAN REVOLT
But Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who also voted no on the procedural vote, told Fox News Digital that he has concerns about how the bill is financed.
“I appreciate what the chairman’s trying to do in some respects, but there’s a few issues,” Roy said.
Among them, Roy pointed to provisions offsetting new spending through changes affecting other veterans.
“You’re taxing certain veterans to provide some sort of benefits and changes to other veterans,” Roy said. “There are concerns about some of the pay-fors.”
Veterans of Foreign Wars has also taken issue with Section 108 of the bill, warning that it would codify changes to future disability ratings for tinnitus and sleep apnea to help finance other veterans priorities.
But Bost said this is inaccurate.
“No veteran is going to have their benefits reduced,” Bost said. “If you’re receiving a benefit right now, that’s not going to be reduced at all.”
Roy, who previously served two years on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said he supported a lot of what the bill was seeking to accomplish; but said other pieces of legislation are priorities, too.
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“There is a block of us for whom border security, the SAVE Act and demonstrating our leadership on major issues is critical,” Roy said. “Some of these other bills may or may not get hung up based on a desire of many in the conference to see movement on other things.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Luna’s office and the White House for comment.
Politics
Assassinations unleashed under Trump haunt Iran war endgame
WASHINGTON — Shortly before President Trump ended a ceasefire with Iran this week, Israeli officials presented his team with intelligence indicating Tehran was hatching new plots to kill him.
It was not the first such warning. U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies have tracked evidence for years of Iranian efforts to target the president, with signals only increasing since the start of the war.
Their desire to target Trump and his top aides began six years ago, just outside Baghdad International Airport, when the president ordered a drone strike that killed Iran’s most powerful general. The assassination of Qassem Suleimani brought the two countries to the brink of war.
Yet even as full-scale war was averted, top Iranian officials vowed revenge for the strike, authorizing attempts on the lives not just of the president, but of his secretary of State and national security advisor, among others, even after they had left office.
Now, calls for revenge have reached a sharper pitch in Tehran, after a joint U.S.-Israeli operation killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at the start of the war in February.
At Khamenei’s funeral ceremonies this week, red flags of vengeance flew throughout the capital as protesters explicitly called on their government to “kill Trump.” His son, Mojtaba, the new supreme leader, was absent from the commemorations, fearing assassination himself.
Mourners hold an anti-President Trump banner at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque during mass funeral prayers for Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family in Tehran on Sunday.
(Morteza Nikoubazl / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The prospect of foreign assassination plots targeting U.S. leaders puts the United States in dangerous new territory, where its embrace of political killings could ultimately place its own officials at unprecedented risk. And experts fear the existential threat of assassination has pushed peace further out of reach: When both sides believe their survival is at stake, the trust required for diplomacy becomes far harder to achieve.
Israeli news organizations have reported that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, cited Iranian attempts to kill Trump in recent years as part of his case to go to war in the first place.
A U.S. official told The Times that a range of serious threats exist against the president, including from Iran, but that Israel’s intelligence pointed to a more specific plot. The official did not provide further details. Israeli officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has said in recent months that the government sees vengeance against U.S. officials as “its legitimate duty and right,” and “will fulfill this great responsibility and duty with all its might.”
“The Suleimani killing accelerated a lifting of restraints on foreign assassinations — and the taboo on targeting and killing foreign leaders, with U.S. military assets, has been more or less lifted,” said Matt Dallek, a political professor at George Washington University.
“If the United States sets the example of how to conduct international relations, and it is using assassination of foreign leaders as a political weapon, it’s only logical that other countries will be more inclined to also engage in assassinations,” Dallek added. “It does seem likely that Trump will have a bigger target on his back.”
Returning from a NATO summit in Turkey on Wednesday, Trump was forced to switch back to an old model of Air Force One — equipped with specialized defensive technologies — from a new plane given as a gift by Qatar, after the Secret Service warned of potential threats to the aircraft from Iran.
“They want to take out the U.S. leader — me,” Trump told reporters aboard the plane. “I’m on whatever list. I saw this morning I’m on every single one of their lists. And so far, I guess I’ve been a bit lucky, but maybe that doesn’t last very long.”
The threat has remained on his mind in the days since. In an interview with the New York Post, Trump told the reporter, “I hope you’ll miss me,” adding that he has “been on their list for a long time.” And in a subsequent social media post Friday night, he warned of a catastrophic response he instructed the administration to pursue in the event Tehran succeeds.
“1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he wrote, “with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat, pronounced in many corners of the Globe, to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, the sitting President of the United States of America, in this case, ME!”
The United States had a decades-old prohibition against assassinating foreign leaders before Trump’s presidency, codified in an executive order signed by President Ford in 1976 over concerns of a CIA plot to kill Fidel Castro.
The policy was only strengthened further by subsequent administrations, fearing a new international standard for targeted killings could result in unintended consequences in the halls of Washington.
Other administrations have been accused of targeting foreign leaders before. Under the Obama administration, an international coalition targeting the Libyan regime of Moammar Kadafi during the country’s 2011 civil war struck his fleeing convoy, leading to his capture and killing by rebel fighters.
But experts say Trump’s explicit targeting of Suleimani and Khamenei — and his public celebration of their deaths — marks a new paradigm.
“Through words and actions, President Trump has done more to normalize political violence than any other U.S. president, certainly in modern times,” said Robert Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago and author of “Our Own Worst Enemies: America in the Age of Violent Populism.”
“On the international front alone, the president routinely brags about killing Iranian leaders and seizing the leader of Venezuela, among others,” he added, “to the point that assassination is becoming the new normal in international politics.”
Politics
Trump takes unusual step, lets bipartisan housing bill become law unsigned amid SAVE pressure campaign
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A bipartisan housing bill became law Saturday at midnight after President Donald Trump declined to sign it, capping a weeks-long saga over whether the president would veto the measure amid frustrations with Congress over his stalled agenda.
Trump refused to sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act — legislation aimed at expanding the nation’s housing stock and lowering costs — in an attempt to pressure Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, despite the housing bill clearing both chambers with overwhelming majorities.
“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, which is polling at 97% with the Republican Party, and very high with the non-politician Dumocrats,” he declared on Truth Social Friday morning.
The Trump-backed election measure, which would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections and impose voter ID requirements, has struggled to overcome the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.
Meanwhile, the House has not passed a version of the bill that includes the president’s proposed crackdown on mail-in voting and banning men from women’s sports.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in Washington. (Alex Brandon/AP)
HOUSE CONSERVATIVES DERAIL GOP AGENDA IN SAVE AMERICA ACT SHOWDOWN
Under the U.S. Constitution, Trump had 10 days, not including Sundays, to sign or veto the housing measure after the House formally transmitted the legislation to the White House in late June. The president ultimately chose neither option, allowing the measure to become law without his signature.
Though Trump declined to veto the legislation, he sharply criticized elements of the bill and argued it should not have been a legislative priority in recent weeks.
“It’s so unimportant … compared to the SAVE America Act,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office in late June. “I think the SAVE America Act is exactly what it says. It’s saving America from crooked elections.”
Trump went on to call the housing bill “a yawn,” adding, “compared to the SAVE America Act, just about everything is a big yawn.”
It would have taken a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override a veto — a margin the House and Senate exceeded when they passed the legislation. However, it remains unclear whether so many Republicans would have defied the president had he vetoed the bill.
Trump also appeared to criticize the bill over a provision restricting Wall Street investors from purchasing single-family homes — a policy he first proposed during his January State of the Union address and later urged Congress to pass. Trump previously argued the investor ban would give individual homebuyers a leg up against private equity firms in the housing market.
“I don’t want to hurt people that own houses, too,” Trump later told reporters, appearing to reference the provision. “These people, for the first time in their lives, they have valuable houses. They’ve become rich. I don’t want to hurt them either. What you want to do is what’s good for everyone, get the interest rates down.”
The law also aims to boost housing supply by streamlining federal environmental reviews, loosening rules around the construction of factory-built homes, and incentivizing local governments to modify their zoning laws to allow more housing, among roughly 60 provisions.
Trump’s souring on the legislation created headaches for Republicans, who touted the bill as an affordability win as voters grapple with high housing costs.
“It’s irresponsible to postpone signing the Housing bill due to the SAVE Act,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a retiring lawmaker who lost re-election to a Trump-backed challenger, wrote on social media. “We need to start delivering relief to people for the high cost of housing ASAP!!”
Construction workers stand on the roof of homes under construction at a new housing development on June 24, 2026, in Valencia, Calif. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
WARREN TELLS TRUMP TO ‘SIGN THE DAMN BILL’ AS BIPARTISAN HOUSING PACKAGE REMAINS STALLED IN WASHINGTON
Trump abruptly canceled a signing ceremony for the legislation at the U.S. Capitol in June with GOP leaders. The stage had already been set, with at least one senior Republican arriving unaware the president had called off the event shortly before it was scheduled to begin.
The president then declared he would not sign the legislation until Congress passed the SAVE America Act, despite Senate GOP leaders insisting the votes do not exist to advance the measure.
Trump has also expressed frustration with the Republican-controlled Senate for declining to weaken the legislative filibuster, which requires 60 votes to advance most legislation in the upper chamber.
“GET SMART REPUBLICANS, IF YOU DON’T, YOU WON’T BE IN OFFICE FOR LONG!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday.
Before Trump came out against the bill, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called it “one of the most significant pieces of housing affordability legislation in American history” and said it included an array of policies “long championed” by Trump.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 15, 2025. (Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Trump political operative James Blair touted the legislation for including the president’s Wall Street investor ban, which he referred to as a “signature commitment.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has argued that Republicans will still promote the landmark housing bill ahead of November.
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“We’ll still celebrate it, but he’s trying to make a point, and I think he’s making it very effectively,” the speaker recently told reporters, referring to Trump. “And the fact that you all ask me every three steps down the hallway illustrates that he has achieved the desired objective, and that is to make SAVE America the number one thing, because if we don’t get that right, everybody’s concerned about what happens next.”
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