Every week, GBH News political reporter Adam Reilly is running down the big ways that the Trump administration and its decisions are intersecting with the politics and people of Massachusetts.
Reilly joined GBH’s Morning Edition host Mark Herz to share his sweeping recap on last week’s developments. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.
Mark Herz: Let’s start with a bit of an odd standoff that seems to be brewing. The Trump administration and the administration of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu — who have already sparred over cooperation between federal immigration and local law enforcement officials:
Tom Homan, pre-recorded: I read a story last night, the police commissioner of Boston, you said you doubled down on not helping the law enforcement office of ICE. I’m coming to Boston, I’m bringing hell with me.
Herz: That is U.S. Border Czar Tom Homan from the Trump administration a few weeks back. But this latest standoff, Adam, is over alleged antisemitic incidents in the city. And antisemitism is seemingly a real bête noire for the White House. I noticed the administration announced yesterday that they’re monitoring immigrants’ social media posts for it. But what’s happening here now in Boston — what’s this about?
Adam Reilly: This is a strange situation that we have unfolding here. Back in March, Leo Terrell, who heads the Trump administration’s task force on combating antisemitism, wrote Mayor Wu to request a meeting within 30 days. And he said in that letter that the antisemitism task force had “information alleging that schools in Boston have faced unacceptable incidents of anti-Semitic harassment and violence.”
The Wu administration wrote back about a week later, saying they take antisemitism very seriously and would be happy to meet — but also saying, “Hey, as we set up a meeting, could you tell us a bit more about these incidents of antisemitic and harassment violence that you’ve mentioned?” So again, those letters were exchanged in March.
Fast forward to Wednesday. There was a meeting with three members of Mayor Wu’s staff, three members of Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden’s staff, the head of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston and two representatives of the Department of Justice’s Joint Task Force on Antisemitism.
And this was an advance meeting to set up a bigger meeting down the road. And even after this advance meeting, it is still not clear what antisemitic incidents the Department of Justice is actually referring to.
Herz: So you say it’s not clear — this was a private meeting. So whose characterization are we relying on?
Reilly: Some of this I heard from the mayor’s spokesperson. She described to me the administration once again trying to get information that they feel they need to proceed, and once again not getting it.
But I mentioned the head of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, Jeremy Burton. He was in the meeting at Mayor Wu’s request. Here’s how he described what went down:
Jeremy Burton, pre-recorded: Both the representatives of the mayor and of District Attorney Kevin Hayden requested additional information about specific incidents of antisemitic harassment and violence. As a participant at the meeting, I can tell you that no additional information was provided to the representatives of the mayor and the [district attorney] in the meeting from the Department of Justice team.
Reilly: I did try to kick the tires on this picture that’s being painted by people here in Boston. I asked the DOJ spokesperson coming out of the meeting, and they had no comment whatsoever.
Herz: So you’ve been trying to dig into this. What is your sense so far? What’s going on here?
Reilly: Well, as you mentioned at the start of our convo here, we’ve seen that the Trump administration likes to use allegations of antisemitism as an offensive weapon. You mentioned that they’re looking at it in immigrant social media posts. They’ve used it as leverage for threatening to deny funding, and demanding reforms at universities like Harvard. But I don’t think that really explains why they’d be so tight-lipped about what allegedly happened here in Boston.
Based on this back and forth and the Trump administration’s refusal to offer up specific details, I’m starting to wonder if they actually really want a big Boston meeting to happen? Or if they think they might gain more, from a PR standpoint, if it doesn’t. Because you can imagine how that would play on Fox or Newsmax — if there was a great big story, “Boston refuses to meet with antisemitism task force.”
Boston is, to echo your use of the phrase, a bête noire of this administration. And they might think that they would get more “oomph” if the story played out that way, than if there actually is a sit-down. One way to make that happen would be to just not give the city information that the city sees as a precondition for a meetup.
Herz: That’s a pretty savvy projection there, yeah.
Reilly: It might sound a little conspiratorial, but I find it very, very odd that the administration is not saying, “OK, yeah, we’ve got these six things that are alleged to have happened. This is what we want to talk to you about, can we do it?”
Herz: Well, you just mentioned Harvard on the antisemitism theme that we’re on here. And Harvard’s in their sights, as well as the Ivy Leagues — that’s another bête noire.
Reilly: And then there’s some other non-Ivy League schools too, yeah.
Herz: With Harvard in particular, the Cambridge City Council unanimously called on Harvard not to give into demands from the Trump administration. And as we discussed last week, the administration has threatened to pull nearly $9 billion in federal grant money if Harvard doesn’t take an array of steps — including ending its DEI programs, banning masks at campus protests, and fully cooperating with the Federal Department of Homeland Security on immigration enforcement. Is this purely a symbolic call from the Cambridge City Council, or does it ramp up pressure on Harvard to stand firm against the Trump administration?
Reilly: The first thing I would say is: It might seem weird to have a city council weighing in on this issue of national or international importance, but there is a long and honorable tradition of this in Massachusetts and elsewhere. I remember doing a big story about how the Boston City Council, over the years, had taken stands on things like apartheid and the Troubles in Northern Ireland. So this isn’t unusual.
But as the Cambridge City Council’s resolution notes, Harvard’s response to the Trump administration is going to have a massive impact right in the university’s backyard. Cambridge is through and through a college town. So much of its character is shaped by Harvard’s presence. And the policy order that came out of the Cambridge City Council is actually a pretty rousing summary of the case for a more aggressive response from Harvard than what the university has seemed to be inclined to deliver to date. And it will be accompanied by this “Stand Up Harvard” rally in Harvard Square on Saturday.
So no, I don’t think the Cambridge City Council is putting equivalent pressure on Harvard to what the federal government is. But I do think that the stand they’re taking could impact the way that students and faculty and administrators think about their institution’s response.
Herz: What does the policy order call on Harvard to do?
Reilly I’ll give you one really punchy excerpt. The policy order “urges, in the strongest possible terms, the Harvard Corporation, Harvard’s most powerful governing body, to stand up in defense of the values that are fundamental to both the university and our democracy, follow the lead of Princeton University and former Harvard president Larry Summers” — both of whom have argued that Trump is radically overreaching — “and use all measures possible, including the university’s endowment funds, if necessary, to safeguard academic independence, the rule of law, and democracy.” If you read the Cambridge policy order next to Harvard President Alan Garber’s response, it’s the Cambridge policy order that really brings the rhetorical heat here.
