Philly Mayor Cherelle L. Parker is among the Democrats trying to coexist with Trump
Parker won’t be caught in a sound bite attacking the incoming commander-in-chief. Other Democrats have signaled they, too, may be less openly hostile to Trump than in 2016.
As Mayor Cherelle L. Parker campaigned around Philadelphia for Democrats last fall, she never seemed too keen to say President-elect Donald Trump’s name.
When asked about the former president, Parker would often refer to Trump as “this guy,” leveling a brief criticism and quickly pivoting to say something nice about his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
So it is perhaps unsurprising that, as Trump is set to be sworn in for a second time Monday, Parker won’t be caught in a sound bite attacking the incoming commander in chief. The mayor, a Democrat who is entering her second year overseeing the largest city in Pennsylvania, has instead vowed to work with the incoming Trump administration on their shared priorities — if there are any.
“In this moment in our city’s history, we need everybody to help move us forward,” Parker said during a news conference this month when asked if she would meet with the president. “And that’s what leaders do. Check your egos, your pride, and your emotions at the door, and you come together to try to find solutions to problems.”
Parker’s openness to working with a president who on the campaign trail often vilified “Democrat-run cities” comes as others in her party have also signaled they may be less openly hostile to Trump than they were at the beginning of his first term. It could be in part because Trump and Republicans won decisively, and Democrats want to show they are responsive to an electorate ready for change.
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman recently made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate, to meet with the president-elect. Gov. Josh Shapiro, who, ahead of the election, portrayed Trump as an existential threat to democracy, now says he’s ready to work with him. Other prominent Democratic governors have highlighted areas of potential collaboration.
Still, the lack of resistance is especially notable coming from Parker, who governs a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans 6-1, and who almost certainly doesn’t need Philadelphia’s Trump supporters in her corner if she decides to run for reelection.
Those close to Parker say her calculus may be more about governance than personal politics. Philadelphia receives hundreds of millions of dollars a year in federal funding from a variety of streams, and it might need more. In her second year in office, Parker is prioritizing a housing plan aimed at increasing the city’s supply of affordable units — a significant undertaking that could require funding and grant dollars from outside the city.
She is also looking to expand the city’s support services for people with substance use disorder as part of a broader effort to end open-air drug markets.
Earlier this month, the administration opened a massive new recovery house in Northeast Philadelphia. City Council already approved $100 million in funding for the project, but Parker said that the administration already needs $50 million to $75 million more, and that the incoming Trump administration could be a potential partner.
“I don’t care Democrat, Republican. I don’t care who you are,” she said at the opening of the facility. “This is about addressing an issue in the city of Philadelphia.”
Her posture is a 180 from her predecessor, former Mayor Jim Kenney, who led the city during Trump’s first administration and seemed to relish taking the fight to the White House, calling Trump everything from a con man to an “idiot.”
After Trump’s first election win in 2015, Kenney, too, expressed openness to meeting with him. But the collegiality didn’t last, largely because of Trump’s maximalist immigration policies, which Kenney — who made standing up for immigrants a cornerstone of his political identity — despised.
Parker is already facing pressure to take a more Kenney-style approach to immigration. Activists want her to vow Philadelphia’s status as a sanctuary city is here to stay, despite threats from Trump and incoming administration officials to strip federal funding from cities that protect undocumented immigrants.
’This isn’t 2016′
Richardson Dilworth, a professor and head of the Department of Politics at Drexel University, said Trump has created an environment of uncertainty by repeatedly making unspecific threats of retaliation against cities and states that do not fall in line with his administration’s vision on immigration. He has at times said he would use the military to carry out deportations or strip federal funding from cities that do not assist.
Dilworth said that Trump and his administration are coming in with the experience of a first term, making any threat “more serious this time.”
“This isn’t 2016,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a lot of electoral benefit for [Parker] — or even a benefit in general — to take the sort of antagonist stance that the Kenney administration had and everyone had. That’s clearly not the vibe now.”
» READ MORE: Fetterman will meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, culminating months of working more openly with the GOP
Parker has never been quite like Kenney, who was seen as a socially progressive member of City Council before he became mayor. Parker is a more moderate Democrat who ran for mayor on a tough-on-crime platform. Her first election was to the state House, where she occasionally worked alongside Republicans to advance policy — a sort of bipartisanship rarely necessary in City Hall, where Democrats reign.
When she ran in the Democratic primary for mayor in 2023, she spoke often on the campaign trail about her experience working with Republicans in Harrisburg and described it as evidence that she was not driven by ideology.
She has continued to resist political tribalism since taking office. Despite campaigning for Democrats ahead of the November election, Parker has since gone out of her way to strike a bipartisan tone. Parker has said she will work with new Republican U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick.
And she has on several occasions publicly congratulated new State Sen. Joe Picozzi, a Northeast Philadelphia Republican who stunned Democrats in November when he ousted one of Parker’s allies: then-Sen. Jimmy Dillon. Picozzi, the first Republican state senator from Philadelphia in more than 20 years, joined Parker and other Democrats on stage last month when she delivered a major “State of the City” address.
She greeted Picozzi during the speech and said his presence there was a symbol of her commitment to “intergovernmental cooperation.”
“The people of Philadelphia elected me to do a job,” she said. “And I need to say to you, as your mayor, that no election result will change my focus. Period.”