The homeless crisis in San Francisco has been the horrifying subject of many headlines in recent months, but witnessing a person defecating on a public street has become the norm for many in cities across the nation, and according to Fox News anchor Sandra Smith, “it changes you.”
Videos of the sad state of San Francisco have circulated on social media, showing hoards of drugged-out people camping on the streets, dazed people slumped against anything that will hold their emaciated bodies up.
#USA These are dark times in San Francisco… pic.twitter.com/u9ipUxAJtA
— WORLD PEACE MOVEMENT (@darren_stallcup) June 15, 2023
As BizPac Review reported, presidential hopeful, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, took a trip out west this week and toured the “collapsed” City by the Bay.
In a campaign video shot in San Francisco and released by the GOP contender, DeSantis said, “We came in here and we saw people defecating on the street, we saw people using heroin, we saw people smoking crack cocaine.”
‘Insanity’: San Francisco mayor’s response to DeSantis’ brutal criticism explains A LOT https://t.co/gtTIxZb21k via @BIZPACReview
— BPR based (@DumpstrFireNews) June 22, 2023
“And you look around,” DeSantis continued, “the city is not vibrant anymore. It’s really collapsed because of leftist policies.”
San Francisco Mayor London Breed shot back with a bizarre response that accused DeSantis of just trying to get “attention.”
“He’s using the oldest playbook in politics to get attention,” Breed told Fox 2, “talking bad about what’s wrong and not necessarily talking about solutions to fix it.”
Not like President Joe Biden, Breed noted, who was in San Francisco “yesterday talking about climate change and artificial intelligence.”
The exchange was the topic of debate during a segment on Thursday’s edition of Fox News’s “The Five.”
(Video: Fox News)
“The comment about defecating,” Smith said, “it gets to me because this has recently happened to me here in New York City.”
“You were defecating?” co-host Greg Gutfeld joked.
“No,” Smith replied, “but I saw someone defecating.”
“By the way, it was like within three feet of a police car, and it changes you,” she said. “It’s awful. It’s really awful to see.”
Smith called the situation in San Francisco “a mess.”
“I really feel for these folks who have tried to hang on and live in a city that they love, but that’s not the case so much anymore,” she said. “In this two-week arrest period, the 45 arrests, and only three people were from San Francisco. These people who are committing these crimes aren’t even from there, first of all, and now just to go shopping you’re gonna have to walk through metal detectors.”
“I mean what is happening?” she asked. “And then once you get through the metal detector, they’re shutting off the second exit — God forbid there’s a fire — and then you get there and you have to go find an employee to open up the locked store shelf to get your toothpaste. I mean, it’s a mess.”
Indeed, many businesses in San Francisco have simply given up, choosing to close their doors rather than deal with the rampant crime.
Telecommunications giant AT&T announced last week that it will be shutting its flagship, downtown store. The move follows news that Westfield, of the Westfield San Francisco Centre mall, would be turning the retail center back over to its lender, allowing it to decide the property’s future.
AT&T next to bail as the ‘collapse of San Francisco’ accelerates at an ‘alarming pace’ https://t.co/7tnyGFiLid via @BIZPACReview
— BPR based (@DumpstrFireNews) June 16, 2023
Regarding Mayor Breed, co-host Jesse Watters said, “I’d be humiliated if I were her.”
“I’ve probably, on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime’ talked to more people in the Tenderloin than she has,” he continued. “If she talked to them, she might know that there’s a problem.”
“This city is such a political gift for the Republican Party,” Watters stated. “You have a location where all of the people running for president can go to, and it’s just a pile of every failure the Democrats have had — crime, illegals, drugs, homelessness that the Republican candidate can just point to and say, ‘See? This is what Democrats give you. This is Joe Biden.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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