By He knows where to hit them. In an unmistakable gesture of political reprisal, former President Donald Trump has set his sights on one of Nancy Pelosi’s signature achievements: the Presidio Trust.
Established in 1996, the Presidio Trust emerged from a rare federal mandate: to preserve, restore, and manage the historic military post of the Presidio—newly incorporated into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area—while achieving financial self-sufficiency. Tasked with balancing the imperatives of historic preservation, environmental stewardship, and urban development, the Trust governs more than 1,500 acres of parkland, historic structures, and residential spaces. Within this framework, the Presidio has evolved into a dynamic public space—a convergence of cultural institutions, commercial ventures, and recreational havens—where history and modernity intersect.
The Daily Caller writes that as part of his effort to reform the federal bureaucracy, Pelosi’s favorite pet project has gotten focus from the White House.
President Donald Trump announced in a Wednesday executive order that his administration will look to cut the Presidio Trust to the fullest extent possible, picking a fight with the federal agency that oversees the nearly-1,500 acre park in San Francisco. Pelosi worked in Congress to establish the Presidio Trust in the 1990s to manage the city’s famous Presidio, and she subsequently helped land a $200 million award to Presidio Trust in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to cover costs of “climate resilience” projects at the park.
Trump’s order specifically orders the rest of his administration to eliminate the Presidio Trust “to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law,” and it is unclear just how much the federal government will be able to cut from the Presidio Trust.
For her part, Pelosi argued Thursday that Trump is targeting the Presidio Trust in order to distract from potentially unpopular GOP policies and reforms. The Presidio Trust is considered a defining element of Pelosi’s “local legacy” built up over nearly 40 years in elected office, according to The New York Times, and it renamed its visitor center after Pelosi in her honor in 2024.
Moreover, Pelosi has also lived in the past in the Presidio Terrace, an affluent and mansion-lined neighborhood just south of the Presidio that has also been home to the late former Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and the city’s British consulate, according to The San Francisco Standard. In 2022, Paul Pelosi — the speaker emerita’s husband — was attacked by a hammer-wielding intruder in the couple’s home in Pacific Heights, San Francisco, another high-end neighborhood adjacent to the Presidio.
Yet, for all its symbolic weight, the order’s practical consequences will likely be negligible, according to Politico. The Presidio Trust has, since 2013, operated without congressional funding, sustaining itself through leases, events, and commercial ventures within its restored military buildings. The cuts, then, amount less to a genuine fiscal threat and more to a political gesture—an attempt to tarnish Pelosi’s legacy by striking at one of her proudest accomplishments.
San Francisco officials have interpreted the move as a broader assault on the city itself, with Supervisor Stephen Sherrill declaring, “This isn’t just about Pelosi. It’s about San Francisco—about all of us who call this city home.”
Yet the Trust, fortified by bipartisan congressional support and a firm legal foundation, seems immune to Trump’s bluster. “It cannot be dismantled by executive fiat,” insisted former board member Marie Hurabiell, underscoring the durability of the institution.
Ironically, the Presidio Trust may be the poster child for how other similar government institutions should work. The organization has a $46 million surplus this fiscal year.
The Trust isn’t the only part of the government stamped by Pelosi’s decades in Washington to be targeted by Trump. The New York Post reported that the president has begun the process to sell the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building.
“The Nancy Pelosi Federal Building, a two-decade-old, 18-story tower known as the San Francisco Federal Building until its formal dedication to the former House speaker in December, sits on Mission and 7th streets in an area that has been for years plagued by open-air drug dealing, illegal markets reselling stolen goods and other crime.”
[Read More: Creepy Governor Calls Mothers Gross Name]
