A low-profile Democratic mayor has revealed his strategy for keeping on the good side of Donald Trump – taking a markedly different approach to his fellow liberals.Â
Houston Mayor John Whitmire has said the best way to navigate Trump’s aggressive deployment of National Guard troops to blue cities is to simply lay low.Â
‘Sometimes the louder you get, the less people listen to you,’ Whitmire told the New York Times of his fellow Democrats.Â
‘I don’t respond to Trump — that could be counterproductive. Do I have personal views? Sure, and they’re strong, but why do you want to challenge him?’
‘Most major cities are in turmoil,’ he added. ‘We’re not.’Â
Whitmire blasted other Democratic mayors from California to Illinois for loudly speaking out against Trump in a way he believes is not productive.Â
He singled out Brandon Johnson in Chicago, Illinois, and Karen Bass in Los Angeles particularly for their fiery rhetoric.Â
Johnson accused Trump of wanting to spark a ‘civil war‘Â during a No Kings protest this weekend, where he told a crowd to be ‘ready to fight fascism’.Â
Houston Mayor John Whitmire (pictured above) has said the best way to navigate Trump’s aggressive deployment of National Guard troops to blue cities is to simply lay low
Home to 2.4 million people, Houston (pictured) is the fourth most populous city in America. With a high immigrant population, it is a blue stronghold within a deep red state
The 49-year-old politician promised spectators that Chicago would remain at the forefront of the resistance against the Trump administration.Â
Meanwhile, Bass has blamed the White House for the chaos which swept through Los Angeles when anti-ICE protests spiraled out of control in June.Â
She also described Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to the city as an ‘all-out assault on Los Angeles’, while pushing back against ‘authoritarianism’.Â
A spokesperson for Bass told the NYT the mayor would ‘never stop working for, fighting for and being the voice of LA’.Â
Whitmire also saved some ire for the front-runner for New York City’s upcoming mayoral elections, Zohran Mamdani, for having what he described as ‘a horrible record of bringing people together’. Â
‘He’s saying he’s going to arrest the prime minister of Israel? You think that’s how you bring people together? He and me are in different universes,’ Whitmire told the NYT.
Whitmire has overseen Houston as mayor since 2024, after serving in the Texas State Senate from 1983 until 2023.  Â
Home to 2.4 million people, Houston is the fourth most populous city in America. With a high immigrant population, it is a blue stronghold within a deep red state.Â
Whitmire has blasted other Democratic mayors from California to Illinois for loudly speaking out against Trump in a way he believes is not productive
Anthony Rios, a co-chairman of Houston Progressives, told the NYT that the city has a long history of ‘quiet’ politics, which strives to make progress without noisy confrontation.Â
This has been tradition since the city slowly desegregated without the violent clashes which unfolded across much of the rest of the South, largely through covert efforts to improve civil rights.Â
‘It’s the Houston way of doing politics,’ Rios told the NYT. ‘Just focus on economic growth.’
However, other progressives in Houston disagree with the subtle approach championed by Whitmore, saying he should have more backbone.Â
‘This is a mayor who has no vision,’ Karthik Soora, a co-chairman of Houston Progressives, told the NYT.Â
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Democrat mayor John Whitmire goes scorched earth against his fellow liberals… and reveals how to keep on Trump’s good side