Mayor: Working with Trump’s staff ‘difficult’

Working with the Trump administration is “difficult,” said Mayor Martin J. Walsh, with too much focus on the border wall.

“We try to work with his people — it’s difficult,” Walsh said. “I don’t think anyone can say they work with him, it literally changes day-to-day. I wish that at this point in his presidency he had a different approach to dealing with issues and not using social media and Twitter.

“I think he’s spent too much time in the Capitol talking about a wall and not enough time in the Capitol on passing legislation,” he said.

Walsh said under former President Barack Obama, he and other mayors around the nation were often engaged with the White House and included in federal policy talks because Obama wanted to get his message out at the local level after losing Democratic legislatures in the last six years he held office.

“I was literally there once a month to talk about things,” Walsh said. “He used us as his conduit out into the communities and they really focused on mayors, so if I wanted to talk to the transportation secretary, I’d call Secretary (Anthony) Foxx, you know if I wanted to talk education, I’d call Secretary (Arne) Duncan and literally they’d pick up the phone and call me back.”

He says Trump’s administration is different.

“Betsy DeVos (secretary of education) has come a couple of times, but no secretaries came to the U.S. Conference of Mayors,” Walsh added, “so I don’t think that they’ve quite figured out that there’s an opportunity with mayors to get some ideas and messages out there.”