Boston Politics

hate it. They just do period. End of story. So having said that, that's right, I guess that's kind of all I got to bitch about. Well, you can always find a lot to bitch about if you really thought about it. But this is where I am with politics now, and hopefully we're going to talk to John Kellery's schedule to join us here. And before I give you the rundown of the show, prior to the last few days, my opinion on politics was I'm sticking my head in

the sand or current events period. I'm just sticking my head in the sand. I don't want to know. I'm just gonna stay inside my house I'm gonna watch The Diplomat. I'm gonna watch some movies. I'm gonna read some books. I'm gonna hang out with my family. I'm gonna do a little teaching. I'll talk to Bob Bryan on a podcast twice a week. But I'm not gonna pay attention to anything in the real world. I'm not gonna do

it because it's too scary and it's too depressing. I mean, my god, those poor people in Washington with the Blackhawk helicopter in the airline crash. I mean, it just breaks your freaking heart. I can't. I don't know what happens. You know, maybe you get a little you're sensitive when you're younger, and you're more sensitive when you're older. In between, you're kind of like, eh, I can handle it. Maybe it's because you're busy, you know, you're thirty or forty, Ah,

you blow it off. You get in the fifties, maybe you become a little more sensitive. But I can't watch the coverage anymore. I mean, for the families from Boston, Oh my god, the skaters, and it just brings tears to your eyes. You know, I need to think you need a therapist after watching the six thirty news. You really do. It's so damn depressing. And then I started, I knew this show was coming up, and I said, you know what, Gar you gotta you gotta, you gotta

buck up a little bit here. You really do, stop being such a whimp. Now that doesn't mean I have to watch CNN or MSNBC or Fox News and twenty four hour news coverage. I mean that could really drive you crazy. But I got to pay attention. Not because I'm doing a talk show with Dan Ray. And believe me, I would never try to say I'm as knowledgeable as Dan Ray. But I think it's my duty as a citizen. I need to pay attention. I need to keep an eye on things a little bit. We all have to

because it seems like everything's going to hell. I mean, you got Musk who's shutting down stuff. He wants to shut down usaid and he doesn't even we didn't elect him. I mean, he's Trump's buddy and he's going around shutting down things. But is he wrong? Maybe he's right to do it. I don't know. This guy's made trillions of dollars. He's not stupid. Is he just shutting something down to be a dink or is he shutting it down because

it's not working. Stay tuned on that. Now. When Trump came out with these tariffs, you know a lot of people, especially a business, thought he was crazy and so forth, and he just says it. He just said that's the way it's going to be. He got to hand it to him. Look, I didn't vote for the guy I thought. Look, as far as the presidential election was concerned, I wasn't

thrilled with either choice. But now Mexico is saying they're going to send ten thousand troops to the border to stop the drug trade or help stop the drug trade. Canada is now coming to the table and it's going to have discussions with Trump on how we can stop drugs coming in from Canada. Now, from what I understand, the majority of it comes from Mexico. And I also sometimes I get confused with illegal immigration, with people crossing

the border. I think almost ninety nine percent of it come from the South and one percent comes from the North. I believe that's what the situation is. So maybe I'm confusing that with the drugs a little bit. Trump is crazy. He just says stuff. He just says stuff.

People don't want to look at the situation realistically. People have been using narcotics to numb themselves, to self medicate since the beginning of humankind, whether it's chewing on a root, or whether it's smoking a leaf, or whether it's drinking some sort of kind of concoction from a still, this society has never been drug free. I gotta be honest with you. I don't think we can handle it. I don't think humankind can exist without some sort of medication.

Now I'm not saying, oh, let's make cocaine, you know, legal, and let's just go jump into a pile of the white stuff, but without either some anxiety medicine from your doctor, without the three high balls after you get home from work, or with the glass of wine from dinner, or with the joint you go out and you smoke on the back patio. I don't think we can as a society. We cannot get through life unmedicated. It can't be done.

We've never done it. We've never done it. Period. So now they're gonna send ten thousand troops to the border to stop the drugs, Well, well they're at it, they might as well help with the legal immigration as well. And maybe that is the case. Maybe I've missed that. But if that's a lot of people, But does it really matter whether it's one, two, three, four or five thousand, ten thousand Mexican show soldiers at the border. If the cartels run the country. The cartels basically run the country.

They have all the money, they have all the power. They do I mean, they just do. They run the country in Mexico. So are there ten thousand soldiers going to stop that? Do they know where the tunnels are? Because the way I see it, when it comes to drugs infiltrating the country, it's not like the cartel sands a battalion across the border. They said it through tunnels. They pay people off. They have a way to do it that no one knows. So you might have ten

thousand guys above ground, who knows. Maybe they're going through tunnels underneath. I don't know, but we could call Trump crazy with the terriffs, but he's got people coming to the table, and he's made his point clear. I'm not optimistic when it comes to stopping the drug trade. I'm just not. People need to drink, people need to smoke, people need to get high. It sucks, It sucks, but we are a chemically dependent society. But when Trump first put this out to twenty five twenty five, I thought

he was nuts. What do I know? He got these guys to the table six one seven six one seven two five four ten thirty. Yes, I did forget the number for a minute. Excuse me? Could you do better? You probably could. Gotta take some calls on this and uh run down the rest of the show coming up next. I'm Gary tag Away for Dan Ray. This is Night's Side. Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio. Gary tag Away for Dan Ray tonight six thirty. I didn't realize I

was gonna be so pessimistic tonight. I got an I'll be honest with you when I open up the show. I I don't know what I'm gonna say I stopped planning a long time ago. I just when I plan, I get nervous. A lot of people get nervous when they don't plan. When I plan, I get nervous, I get anxious. I don't like it. I want to go on blind, Flying Blind, And I started out talking about the fact that Trump obviously, ay, he's got Canada and Mexico talking to him, but I still don't think ten

thousand Mexican soldiers are going to stop the drugs. We have been a society addicted to some sort of chemical forever and it's never going to change, all right. Maybe Gary and Woolburn will talk me off the ledge about that. Let's see if I can get this computer work. Gary, you're up on wbz's Nightside.

And now Mexico says they're going to send ten thousand troops to the border to stop the drug trade. I think stopping the drug trade is impossible. But I'm a pestimate pessimist when it comes to that. What do you think about Trump's negotiating so far?

Is that what's going on right now with Mexico and Canada is some sort of elaborate performance art where Trump saber rattles and they rattle their sabers back, and oh, they're moving troops to the border. Well what does that really mean? So I think it's wait and see.

but the world since Caven could chew roots. I mean, there's been some sort of form of chemical pendency and some there's self medication, and I just you know, to me, it's it's prevention, it's it's I mean, it's just like a fire will never be able to put out, and I don't know if even ten thousand soldiers at the border will stop it.

which I blame. I mean, I'm a registered Democrat. I did not vote for him, but I you know, I blame the Democrats because if you couldn't beat this guy, what the hell are you doing?

tried now. So people think that status quo under Biden is a failure, you bet they're going to be open to something dramatically different. So, you know, I think a lot of the reason why Biden beat Trump in twenty twenty, and by the way he did beat him. Okay, let's yeah that yeah, we agree on that, is that people felt that Trump hadn't delivered on a lot of his promises. You mentioned one, you know, dealing with the border. Remember how COVID was going to be over by Eastern. So

broken promises are poison for a political figure. And I don't think in the end, don't Trumps any exception to that. But it's what is it week three? So the jury's out?

but it cannot be. It cannot be a magnet of the opposite sex or of the sex you are attempting to attract.

Let's look at that, not at all. And he has no restraints on him apparently, and that's a little bit scary. I don't think in their sober moments, people want anyone to have that kind of power over us.

thanks again for joining us getting back to this. Did you see the movie of The Apprentice?

doing now. He's been doing for forty years. But he just did it in business, So why stop now, you know. That's that's the thing, Like, this isn't new to him. This is how he's done it. This has been his playbook from day one. That's what I think.

right there, you know, in the election results. So that may be a dismaying or demoralizing fact, but I think it's a fact. So yes, you're right. I mean, it's funny, Gary, I got interested in Trump way back in the eighties when he was just getting up ahead of steam in Manhattan real estate. I used to read Spy Magazine, Remember Spy Magazine and Trump. It was this snarky magazine that sort of closely followed the cummings and goings of New

York celebrities, and Trump certainly set the bill. They after a while settled on a stock phrase. Every time his name would be mentioned in the magazine, it would be preceded by the words short fingered, vulgarian Donald Trump, and

that every reference, month after month, year after year. Anyway, I got interested in Trump, and I read pretty much every biography about him that I could get my hands on, and yeah, you know, everything his critics say about him is true, and everything that is fans admire about him, or at least what makes him an effective paul is also true and is brilliant in its own way. Call it diapa if you want, but I think we've got to recognize from that standpoint what's going on here. It's a phenomenon.

it's been documented. I mean, Josh had donated to Wo's campaign in the past, and I don't believe she's committed yet to run, but maybe that's just a technicality. Are you surprised that these two will oppose each other.

she's not invulnerable. There are some weaknesses there, and judging from the announcement video that Josh Craft released, he understands what they are and is going to talk about them. And the other thing to know about this race is that it's going to be a real uphill battle for Josh Craft or anyone else because Michelle Wu is a really really good retail politician with a strong, well cultivated

base of support and political machine within the city. And they're, you know, whatever the ups and downs of the Wu years, and there have been plenty of them, they're not going to roll over and watch her get swept out. And I'm not sure yet if there's enough anti Humban's sentiment, unhappiness, anxiety within the Boston electorate to sweep her out. I think that remains to be seen.

charity work. And I don't know if people can wrap their heads around that, you know what I mean. I mean, he's his mother's son. So like the fact that he is a billion I mean, he comes from a billionaire family. Even though he's very charitable and he's very civic minded, I don't know if the money background.

is going to matter. It certainly is an interesting twist that in a way he's running to be at least in part, the candidate of Bostonians of color. I mean, most of his charity work, certainly, not all, but most of it has been with the black community in Boston as head of the Urban League. All the boys and girls clubs, of course serve a diverse clientele. But and so here's this, you know, white guy from the suburbs who now lives in the city or at least has

a voting residence there. And you know, it's just kind of an interesting twist. It'd be interesting to see how it goes over within the black community, which doesn't vote as a monolith as we keep seeing in every election, you got that, right, and how it plays city wide. But I'll tell you again, you know, the more I'm in this racket, Garry, the more I just kind of just believe in what the numbers are trying to tell you,

the actual hard numbers. On voting day, I mean, Michelle Wu ran up vote totals in her life US two citywide runs for counselor at large that were amazing. It reminded me of the late Dapper O'Neill. The city councilor used to brag that they didn't count his votes. They weighed them, and they they had to weigh Michelle Who's votes. And she didn't do too badly in the mayor race four years ago when she was elected either, as I recall, she was right around sixty five percent of the vote.

That's what you call a landslide. So you know that that tells you something. And I don't think that she's you know, neglected her voters over the last four years. Now they may well be among those voters were unhappy about certain things.

the neighborhoods. And also there's reasonablieve that there are significant numbers of voters who feel like this city hall takes my way or the highway approach and doesn't really listen to legitimate criticism, respond to legitimate concerns. And that's something as a mayor, you never want to be branded as arrogant. So those are issues that I think are real that she'll have to deal with. But she starts out as a heavy favorite. Gary, Josh Kraft or anyone else.

o'clock with Odie Henderson of the Boston Globe. Sam Metler, all thanks politics with my moderate friend from the West Coast. If you're a moderate from LA that means everybody hates you. It's all coming up on Nightside on WBZ. Now back to Dan ray Mine from the Window World night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio. Hey, welcome back Garyan for

Dan tonight Day. Coming up a nine o'clock we will talk more about the tarrifs, terris terroriffts that Trump has been talking about and now it seems to be getting people to the negotiating table. So is his ploy working. David Elcott joins us business strategists to discuss. Thanks to my buddy John for coming on. It's always a pleasure to talk to him. CBS Bosson political analyst John Keller, it's the mayor race is going to be interesting, I

think because Michelle Wolf seems very likable. As John mentioned, with any sitting politician, president, mayor senator, there's going to be issues, but she could be a tough out for Josh Kraft, who's a brilliant guy. I almost feel like, could they be co mayors? Would that work? Because I think I shut asked John this. I think they're kind of on the same page right with some things politically, both Democrats. I know Josh is very liberal, wants to

help people stay tuned. I think it's I hope they have a debate because I think it'll be a great rate debate. Six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty Wally and Georgetown is on WBC's Night Side.

like a dictator, and Donald Trump is letting him. Donald Trump is not crazy. Donald Trump is just a man who loves money. He doesn't love people. He loves money. That's why he lets this guy do this. And it's against the law. Only Congress can shut down an agency that they created. But yet these people are walking into government offices and doing this. And I'm not a prophet. I'm not a New Testament or Old Testament prophet. But

I'm gonna tell you all these people. We have one right wing radio down here laughing at people about to get thrown out of jobs. And people like mister Rogan and mister Bannon and all those right wing people, they got families, they got children, they got wives, and they're laughing at other people's discomfort and they're disrespecting people, and everybody on the street called it karma. It's going to come back around to the theater.