Elected to represent Massachusetts during Donald Trump’s first presidential term and having seen him returned to power, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley was blunt Tuesday in Cambridge.
The Democratic Party didn’t lose in 2024 on social issues, she said. “I’m not going to couch this or nuance this. I believe we lost because it was more important to a lot of people to preserve white supremacy,” Pressley said to applause from the crowd gathered at the Cambridge Street Upper School.
“They were very skilled at advancing othering and a scarcity mindset,” she said of the Trump campaign. Voters were presented an us-versus-them problem without much basis in reality and answers that were equally imaginary, and “I imagine there are people who believed what he told them, that he was going to lower the cost of prescription drugs and groceries and housing.”
Pressley was present when Boston mayor Michelle Wu testified to Congress in early March in support of immigrant sanctuary city policies. During the hearing, Pressley sought to enter several articles into the record, including a 2018 piece from Quartz that showed that Americans born in the United States have been convicted of sexual assault and homicide in Texas at a higher rate than immigrants – documented or undocumented. House Oversight Committee chair James Comer denied Pressley’s attempt to introduce the data.
“We have to make the truth more compelling than a lie,” Pressley told her constituents Tuesday. “That is that is the challenge before us in this moment. And all I was trying to do was to get the truth out.”
She also remembered calling Democratic senators ahead of the Senate’s vote on a contentious spending bill on Friday. Ten Democratic senators voted to advance the bill to a final vote, including minority leader Chuck Schumer. The bill, which increased defense appropriations by $6 billion through September 2025 and cut nondefense appropriations by $13 billion, passed the House and Senate with the support of only one Democrat in each chamber: Maine’s Jared Golden in the House and New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen in the Senate.
“The problem is that there was a false narrative that was presented that the choice was between this Republican rip-off to cause harm to the people of this country to pad the pockets of billionaires or this Republican-manufactured shutdown. And that’s not true,” Pressley said.
Democrats: Afraid of power
Falsity was built into the Trump campaign, she said, but voters bought what the campaign and its advisers were selling: “People knew that harm would come if they believed even a third of [Trump’s message], they just thought that they would be exempt from the harm.”
The resulting political dynamic is not pretty.
“Democrats – and we need to remedy this quickly – in my opinion, are afraid of power. And when you operate with scared power, it’s like having no power at all,” Pressley continued.
The Democrats are a minority party in a legislature “not seeming to be so coequal” to the executive branch, said the conversation’s host, Boston Globe assistant metro editor Joshua Miller, relaying a question from a constituent. What exactly can Democrats do?
“Fight like hell,” Pressley said.
Litigation, agitation and legislation
The Democratic strategy is one of litigation, agitation and legislation, Pressley said. She pointed to the Taxpayer Data Protection Act, which was introduced by House Democrats in February as a response to Trump adviser Elon Musk accessing Treasury data. “As a member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, I’ve been conducting real-time oversight by showing up and resisting and agitating in the face of these dangerous and draconian proposals, from dismantling our federal agencies to the unjust massive firing of our dedicated federal workers,” Pressley said.
Pressley also responded Tuesday to constituents concerned about cuts to federal jobs, grant funds and the potential gutting or shutdown of the Department of Education. Of the 40,000 federal workers living in Massachusetts, three-quarters live in the city of Boston, Pressley said. She shared the story of an Everett resident, Claire, who was fired from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in February but had her job reinstated following court action. Pressley said encouraged other workers to do the same.
Community action is also critical, Pressley said. She encouraged the audience to sign up for her newsletter to get updates about town halls and “Know Your Rights” meetings, which she said focus on housing, immigration, disability rights and LGBTQ+ rights. She suggested that a listening session be organized to benefit National Institute of Health workers and residents of Kendall Square. She also emphasized mutual aid, such as buying and sharing Plan B pills and supporting abortion funds. (Abortion remains legal in Massachusetts up to 24 weeks and in cases of medical necessity.)
The Democratic leader
With some positioned the budget vote as a schism between an “old guard” in Congress and a new generation, Pressley was asked whether she would challenge Democrat Ed Markey, who has served in Congress since 1976, for his Senate seat next year.
“Right now I’m focused on what I need to be, and that is the fights that are immediately in front of us,” Pressley said.
But who is leading the Democratic Party, Miller asked.
“The leader is whoever takes their cues from the people,” Pressley said. “That’s why I’m in this seat, because I know where the real power lies – and it is in this movement and it is in each and every one of you.”
“The affirmation I want to leave with you is the following: I choose the discipline of hope over the ease of cynicism, and I choose fortitude over fatalism,” Pressley said. “In the midst of this constitutional crisis, this civil rights crisis where they’re coming to roll back gains and progress and they’re coming for every single one of our rights: My appeal to you, I beg of you, is to not give them your joy too.”
“Not new to this”
Pressley has represented Massachusetts’ 7th congressional district, which covers Somerville, Everett, Chelsea and Randolph as well as parts of Boston, Cambridge and Milton, since 2019. Her election was an upset in the 2018 Democratic primary when she won 60,046 votes to incumbent Michael Capuano’s 42,430. Capuano had represented the district for six years, before which he represented the 8th district for 14 years and was Somerville mayor for nine.
“I’m not new to this, I’m true to this,” Pressley said, remembering her 11 years working for then-senator John Kerry and eight years on Boston’s City Council before being elected to Congress.
Pressley recalled growing up in Chicago before moving to Boston, where she attended Boston University as an undergraduate. Pressley’s mother modeled activism for her, she said. “She had an expectation that I would do my part in that struggle in the work of liberation for Black and all marginalized people,” Pressley said.
Her childhood, during which her father was incarcerated for substance use, also helped shape specific policy positions. “My father, while incarcerated, attained two advanced degrees, came out, attained his Ph.D. and went on to become a college professor, a dean of a college and a published author,” Pressley said. “That is why I’m so passionate about family reunification and those bonds and reentry programs and second-chance Pell grants, recognizing that there are so many brilliant people whose gifts are dying on the vine that are unjustly incarcerated because my father should have been met with culturally competent on demand care, not incarceration.”
A recording of the conversation, which was livestreamed to the Globe’s YouTube channel, had over 1,000 views in the hour after its conclusion.
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