One recent afternoon on Beacon Hill, Gov. Maura Healey, flanked by legislative leaders, held a press conference on the state budget. But the conversation turned quickly to the Trump istration’s decision to cancel $12.2 million in federal spending used to help Massachusetts schools buy food from local farms.
“Right now, Donald Trump and Team Musk are taking that all away,” Healey said. “This is why of Congress need to step up and act, because all states are going to suffer.”
It was just one example of the governor directly criticizing President Trump and his government efficiency czar, Elon Musk, as they slash spending and try to gut federal agencies. Democratic governors are feeling the pain, and Healey has become one of the more outspoken leaders within her party.
After Trump was elected last November, Healey vowed to work with the president where possible. But just weeks into the new istration, she has adopted a very different tone.
Suddenly, the Massachusetts governor seems to be everywhere, seizing high-profile opportunities to speak out against the Trump istration — from an appearance on late night TV with Seth Myers, to a long interview on a New York Times podcast, in which she accused Trump and Musk of teaming up as “co-kings and co-presidents,” who are “doing everything to cut jobs.”
“They’re also doing everything they can to increase costs,” she added, condemning Trump for imposing steep tariffs on America’s trading partners and sparking a trade war that has rattled markets and could drive prices up on many consumer goods.
In an interview last week with WBUR, Healey decried a series of recent actions by the istration, from terminating the school food program to trying to cut National Institute of Health funding for Massachusetts.
“Week after week, whether it’s tariffs, slashing federal workers, taking people out of [Veterans Affairs], cutting access to healthcare — these things hurt Massachusetts,” she said. “They hurt our economy, and I’m going to continue to talk about it.”
If Healey was taking a low-key, behind-the-scenes approach before, the gloves are off now that the Trump istration is threatening the interests of Massachusetts and the city of Boston on multiple fronts. She’s been far more vocal at a time when the Democratic Party is struggling to craft a unified response to Trump.
“Right now, the Democratic Party is in great disarray and in great disagreement,” said Bill Curry, a former Democratic candidate for governor of Connecticut who also advised President Bill Clinton.
According to Curry, Democrats are split into three camps. One advocates sitting back, saying little or nothing, and letting Trump play out his hand. Another favors being strategic and elevating just a few issues to try and “control the narrative.” Then there’s a third camp, led by the likes of Healey.
“What the governor is doing is taking on every issue,” said Curry, calling her approach “the right strategy.”
“Every time you fail to engage an issue, you’re letting a lie go unanswered,” he said. “You’re abandoning the field.”
Indeed, Healey is speaking out on a number of subjects, including why the Democrats lost in November: she says they failed to address the pain of many working Americans, and that Joe Biden was a terrible messenger-in-chief. She defends the diversity, equity and inclusion programs under assault by Washington, saying Massachusetts still values diversity. And she’s urging more of Congress to speak up and assert their constitutional role to control the nation’s purse strings — and protect federal funding for states.
“Make no mistake about it: federal funding is huge for every state in this country,” she told WBUR. “And what Donald Trump is doing by taking it away, by withholding it, by weaponizing it, is really, really bad for Americans across this country.”
The Trump istration says it wants to cut waste and make the federal government more efficient. But at stake for Massachusetts is $16 billion in federal funding, according to Healey’s office, representing about a quarter of the state budget.
Opposing Trump is familiar territory for Healey; as the state’s former Attorney General, she initiated or ed close to 100 lawsuits against the first Trump istration. So it’s not surprising that, as Governor, she has embraced the role of a leading Trump critic once again, according to Rob Gray, a veteran Republican political strategist in the state.
He calls the governor’s position “an easy political play” in a state that opposed Trump by a two-to-one margin. But he said governors also need to be careful about seeking too bright a national spotlight.
“Other Massachusetts governors from [William] Weld to [Mitt] Romney to Deval Patrick have had that blow up on them,” said Grey, suggesting that if voters get the impression their governor is more focused on Washington than Massachusetts, they might turn against her.
Peter Durant, the Republican state Senator from Spencer considering a run for governor, is already trying to use Healey’s anti-Trump fervor to his advantage, arguing that Healey and her fellow Democrats in Congress need to accept that they’re now in the minority — and must work with Trump.
“Instead, they want to just yell and scream, and it’s going to produce zero results for four years — and that hurts us,” Durant said.
For her part, Healey said she’s not trying to pick a fight with the president and that she remains willing to work with his istration when it helps the state. But she said she’ll continue to oppose federal policies that threaten everything from school lunches to veterans to the state’s medical and life science industry.
“As governor, I’m not giving that up without a fight,” she said.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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