I dreamed that Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Gov. Maura Healey met with President Donald Trump at the White House.
In the dream, Trump is seated at the Resolute desk in the Oval Office while Wu and Healey are smiling and standing on either side of him.
Trump is holding a pen and signing a pair of documents. One is an order sending Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Boston to deal with the endless Mass and Cass drug horror show, along with more housing, a problem that nobody seems able to solve, including Wu.
The other document Trump signs is an executive order funding two new Cape Cod bridges along with billions in assistance for the construction of more affordable housing that Healey is always talking about.
“I know you two hate me,” Trump says, “but I don’t hate you. And I love the people of Boston and Massachusetts.”
“We thank you anyway,” the two sing out in unison.
Then I woke up and realized it was all a dream. The two Trump-hating progressive Democrat political leaders did not meet with Trump or say anything nice about him. They never do.
And they did not get two new bridges, or more affordable housing, or a cleaned-up Mass and Cass. It was all a fantasy. The only thing they will get are fewer federal funds and more ICE agents.
The reality is that it was two other Trump hating — or former Trump hating — progressive political leaders who did meet with Trump and who are getting, or have gotten, needed federal aid to help the people they represent.
They are not from Massachusetts, they’re from New York City and Michigan.
One of them is outgoing, term-limited Michigan progressive Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — or “Big Gretch” — as Michigan residents call her.
Whitmer, a sharp Trump critic, was nevertheless able to meet and work with Trump to benefit Michigan. In her final address to the Legislature last week, she listed all the jobs that were created with the help of Trump, including stationing a new jet fighter mission at the state’s National Guard Air Base.
“Probably not on the bingo card,” she said, “but I want to thank President Trump for his work on this.” Then, concluding her speech, she said, “Big Gretch, out,” and blew a kiss to the crowd.
It was surprising that socialist New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani did not blow a kiss to Trump following his surprise meeting with the president at the White House last week.
It was Mamdani’s second meeting with Trump, a man he regularly called a fascist during his mayoral campaign. Trump, in turn, called Mamdani “a communist lunatic.”
While the pair have little in common in that Republican Trump, 79, is a small government, free market capitalist and Mamdani, 35, is a big government, spread the wealth socialist — both are New Yorkers.
Trump loves the city he helped build while Mamdani is trying to get the city to love him.
Trump loves the city so much that at the meeting he looked with favor on Mamdani’s billion-dollar proposal to build 12,000 new housing units in the city, which would be the biggest federal housing investment in New York in 50 years.
Mamdani, who runs a sanctuary city, even got Trump to release from ICE custody a Columbia University student from Azerbaijan who had been detained under questionable circumstances.
Mamdani, who smiles a lot, had a lot to smile about as he posted a picture of the meeting with Trump
He said, “I had a productive meeting with President Trump. I’m looking forward to building more housing in New York.”
Here is the question: How is it that Mamdani, a novice politician who vilified Trump, can meet and work with him to help the people he represents while veteran political leaders like Healey and Wu, who also vilified him, can’t?
Mamdani meets with Trump and New York gets housing; Massachusetts refuses to meet with Trump and gets nothing.
The answer is that a meeting is possible. Trump meets with everybody. All you have to do is ask.
But Healey and Wu lack the political savvy, or the courage, to break from the lunatic left and build an accommodation with Trump to help their city and their state.
Wake up.
Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com
