San Francisco Mayor London Breed (D) said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' (R) recent campaign ad filmed in the Tenderloin neighborhood showing and detailing the social and urban decay in the city was a political stunt that does not tell the whole story.
In the video, DeSantis said they were in the "once great" city of San Francisco and already seen people defecating in the streets and using drugs out in the open.
"Cities like San Francisco that have embraced leftist policies have destroyed the quality of life of their citizens and sparked an exodus of productive people to greener pastures. We need to restore sanity across this country," DeSantis said.
Leadership matters. Cities like San Francisco that have embraced leftist policies have destroyed the quality of life of their citizens and sparked an exodus of productive people to greener pastures. We need to restore sanity across this country. pic.twitter.com/LF86omZ1e6
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) June 20, 2023
During an interview with KTVU, Breed was asked to respond to the video.
"Well, he's using the oldest playbook in politics to get attention: talking bad about what's wrong and not necessarily talking about solutions to fix it. In fact, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been actively engaged in working with us and the federal government to help deal with these challenges," Breed said.
Breed then pivoted to talk about how President Joe Biden was recently in the city to discuss climate change and artificial intelligence.
"The old playbook of focusing on the negative and targeting places like San Francisco have the been, unfortunately, the norm," Breed added.
When pressed whether what DeSantis said in the ad was untrue, Breed said she did not know what he saw so could not comment on that but people should be listening to locals instead.