Boston Mayor Wu strikes defiant tone towards federal ‘tyranny’ in fiery State of the Metropolis speech

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu struck a defiant tone towards the federal scrutiny that’s fallen on the Hub in current weeks and months since President Donald Trump has taken workplace throughout her State of the Metropolis tackle.

Wu, in wide-ranging remarks delivered earlier than a packed crowd on the MGM Music Corridor, vowed that Boston would proceed to guard immigrants at a time when town’s sanctuary insurance policies are being probed by a congressional oversight committee and praised metropolis employees for his or her dedication as “public service employees” on the federal degree are “being dismissed and discredited.”

“Right now, Boston is stronger, extra decided and prouder than ever to be who we’re in a second the place we’d like one another and our nation wants Boston,” Wu stated. “So, tonight, I can say that the State of our Metropolis is powerful. And we’ve to be.

“As a result of everywhere in the nation, individuals are feeling the burden of a federal administration that’s attacking our supply of power — the identical individuals and objective that make Boston nice: public servants and veterans, immigrants and the LGBTQ+ neighborhood, the establishments that conduct groundbreaking analysis and supply lifesaving care.”

Wu stated Boston is residence to the nation’s greatest hospitals, schools and universities, labs and analysis amenities — establishments that she stated drive town’s economic system, present jobs and make the Hub “America’s engine of innovation.”

“Right now, they’re all underneath assault,” Wu stated. “Boston is a goal on this struggle for our future as a result of we’re the cradle of democracy, pioneers of the general public good, the stewards and keepers of the American Dream. We had been constructed on the values this federal administration seeks to tear down.

“However for 395 years and counting, come excessive water or hell — irrespective of who threatens to convey it — Boston has stood up for the individuals we love and the nation we constructed, and we’re not stopping now,” the mayor stated.

Wu was one in every of four-big metropolis mayors to be notified by the Division of Justice this month of an impending go to by its federal process power to probe town’s response to “incidents of antisemitism” on the Hub’s faculties and schools.

She co-led a coalition of mayors final month in submitting an amicus temporary in federal district courtroom in Boston to problem the Trump administration’s “drastic and unlawful cuts to federal analysis funding.”

Extra notably, Wu was one in every of 4 big-city mayors compelled to testify earlier than a congressional oversight committee earlier this month as a part of its probe into so-called sanctuary cities that restrict native police cooperation with federal immigration authorities and their influence on public security.

The mayor, in her State of the Metropolis tackle, repeated her oft-mentioned declare that Boston is the “most secure main metropolis” within the nation, whereas pointing to the Hub’s record-low murder fee in 2024, and praising Police Commissioner Michael Cox — who, like Wu, has drawn the ire of Trump’s border czar Tom Homan.

Wu particularly talked about her time testifying in D.C. to kick off her speech, positioning herself because the winner in her battle with Home Republicans on the March 5 high-stakes listening to, the place she appeared, child in tow with ashes on her brow because it coincided with Ash Wednesday.

“Two weeks in the past, I went right down to D.C. as a result of Congress had some questions on how we do issues right here in Boston,” Wu stated. “It may need been my voice talking into the microphone that day, however it was 700,000 voices that gave Congress their reply: That is our metropolis.

“Nobody tells Boston the right way to maintain our personal,” the mayor stated. “Not kings, and never presidents who suppose they’re kings. Boston was born dealing with down bullies.”

Afterward, Wu, the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants who benefited from birthright citizenship and gave beginning to her third little one this previous January, stated, “Whereas this nationwide second isn’t the one which I — and so many households — had hoped for, I’m grateful that my daughter will get to name this metropolis residence.”

“Boston just isn’t a metropolis that tolerates tyranny,” Wu stated.

Notably, amid a Suffolk Superior Court docket trial that can decide the destiny of town’s public-private plan to rehab Franklin Park’s White Stadium for a brand new professional girls’s soccer workforce, Wu defended the $200 million undertaking that’s divided the neighborhood in her speech, saying it can profit Boston Public Colleges college students.

She additionally touted her administration’s efforts to enhance housing affordability, which her opponent within the mayoral race Josh Kraft has sought to grab on as one in every of her vulnerabilities, and introduced a sequence of initiatives, together with round housing.

Wu introduced plans to launch town’s first-ever anti-displacement plan to assist stabilize households, a co-purchasing pilot program to assist residents buy multi-family houses with 0% deferred curiosity from town, and increase its workplace to residential conversion program to universities and employers seeking to reactivate workplace buildings as dorms or workforce housing.

The mayor additionally introduced a plan to sort out excessive vitality payments by a “historic new partnership with Eversource and Nationwide Grid that can ship greater than $150 million in state funding for our residents to improve their houses and decrease their payments.”

Following current approval from the Zoning Fee, after it initially struck down the mayoral initiative to hurry up net-zero emission necessities, Wu stated, “as a result of buildings are the most important supply of metropolis emissions, beginning this summer time, all new huge buildings in Boston can be net-zero from day one.”

Opposing Zoning Fee members had cited issues with prices to builders, saying rushing up net-zero necessities could hinder the manufacturing of housing throughout an affordability disaster.

The mayor additionally introduced one other enlargement of town’s free museum program, introduced as a pilot for BPS households in final yr’s state of town tackle, to incorporate Boston’s revolutionary websites for all Boston faculty households.

Wu’s opponent within the mayor’s race, Josh Kraft, stated the image wasn’t as rosy as she made it out to be.

“All of us desire a stronger and extra vibrant metropolis, however the state of town underneath Mayor Wu is headed within the flawed course,” Kraft stated in an announcement to the Herald.

“New housing manufacturing has floor to a halt, the issues at Mass and Cass have been pushed out into many neighborhoods, the identical faculties proceed to fail our youngsters, poorly deliberate bike lanes have clogged our streets, and our residents are paying larger taxes because of a bloated payroll and irresponsible fiscal administration.”