President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced federal law enforcement will next set its eyes on San Francisco, commending the FBI's more than 23,000 violent criminal arrests, which he said is more than double the number arrested in the final year of the Biden administration.
During an Oval Office news conference at the White House, Trump said the FBI has "destroyed or severely disrupted" more than 170 organized criminal enterprises and gangs, 1,600 of the most violent gangs, and confiscated more than 6,000 illegal firearms since he was sworn in.
He added he wants to make every city safe, and his focus has turned to San Francisco.
"These are great cities that could be fixed," the president said. "I'm going to be strongly recommending … [we] start looking at San Francisco. I think we can make San Francisco one of our great cities. … It's a mess, and we have great support in San Francisco. … Every American deserves to live in a community where they're not afraid of being mugged, murdered, robbed, raped, assaulted, or shot."
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During the news conference, FBI Director Kash Patel announced "Operation Summer Heat," which the FBI created to target violent criminals, yielded 8,700 arrests of violent offenders in three months.
More than 2,200 guns and 421 kilograms of fentanyl seized during the operation-enough fentanyl to kill 55 million Americans, according to Patel.
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To date, he said the FBI has seized 1900 kilograms of fentanyl-enough lethal doses to kill 127 million Americans alone to date.
"If you look at the past four years of the Biden administration, [there were] 16,000, 17,000, 15,000, 15,000 … arrests year over year of violent felons in this country," Patel said. "You have 28,600 arrests of violent felons in just seven months alone because of your leadership and the dedication of the men and women at the FBI who want to go out there and do the job they were prevented from doing. … This number is historic by every metric."
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Patel also highlighted the FBI's efforts to find missing children, claiming 5,400 were located since January.
"That is a 30% increase year to date over the last administration," he said. "Violent crimes against children arrests alone are up 10% [and] gang arrests are up 210% in the last seven months alone. … Mr. President, you said we have to go after the worst of the worst. … This is just the beginning."
