By Erica C. Barnett
During his remarks at the Downtown Seattle Association’s State of Downtown event on Tuesday, Mayor Bruce Harrell appeared to praise President Trump for bringing “smart innovators” like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and David Sacks into his inner circle at the White House.
“We know that our current president surrounds himself by some of the smartest innovators around,” Harrell said. “When we drop names like [Marc] Andreessen or Peter Thiel or David Sacks or Elon Musk—these are smart innovators.”
Harrell, who noted a moment later that he had gone “off script,” had been talking about cybersecurity, potential threats from AI, and competition with China. He also noted that “the FCC is run by Brendan Carr, who did write the playbook for the FCC chapter in Project 25,” and said he got “emotional” about layoffs at the National Institute of Standards in Technology, which Wired describes as an “agency responsible for establishing benchmarks that ensure everything from beauty products to quantum computers are safe and reliable.”
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Mayoral spokesman Jamie Housen said Harrell was actually criticizing Trump and his tech advisors.
“The mayor was not praising them, he was referencing they have an objective reputation as leaders in technology and innovation, and that it is a danger they are in the president’s orbit,” Housen said. “He certainly doesn’t agree with their politics, which is why he highlighted this through concerns around the actions coming out of DC like significant staffing cuts impacting cybersecurity and the degradation of protections and questions over access to personal data.”
Marc Andreessen is a tech mogul who co-founded Netscape and is now one of Trump’s top tech advisors. Palantir founder Peter Thiel, who’s probably best known for funding the Hulk Hogan lawsuit that doomed Gawker, was one of Trump’s earliest tech supporters. David Sacks is a Paypal co-founder who is now Trump’s “crypto czar.”
Tuesday’s event was not the first time Harrell has had seemingly conciliatory words for the Trump Administration while speaking to a business group. During a Washington Technology Industry Association event after the election last year, Harrell said he was not “not going to D.C. with my fist balled,” adding, “I look for opportunities … no matter who’s in the White House.”
Harrell spent the first five minutes of his recent State of the City speech (which we discussed on Seattle Nice last week) blasting Trump’s crackdown on immigrants, funding cuts, “unconstitutional executive orders,” and anti-DEI policies.
Praising 4 of the 5 worst people in the US. (3 are white South Africans who left after Black people became citizens). All 4 open eugenicists.
This article concentrates on one small sentence in an hour long speech – can you say “taken out of context”?
It’s a 12-minute speech, which I posted in its entirety. Elon worshipers are so weird.
I’m disgusted by all these pols doing obeisance to these unelected toadies to Trump. He, of course, needs them because his greed and stupidity is overwhelming. This is a convenient way for him to shift the blame when it all goes to &*(%$.
I had a neutral to slightly positive opinion of Harrell when I voted for him but have nothing left in that direction now, and dont’t think a mayor should be kneeling to kiss the rings of any of them. Sure they”re wealthy and they’ve supported and/or created some good, but unfortunately it’s “give ’em an inch and they’ll take a mile.” Last night’s news had Trump in a cabinet meeting with Musk attending. How inappropriate, but then he’s packed his cabinet with true believers so there’s no one left willing to protest.
That Harrell can support this in any form is just disgusting and awful. Sadly he was the best of a bad lot for my thoughts. Now … UGH.
Harrell has never been the sharpest tool in the shed and has presided over a city in stasis so it’s not surprising to me that he would find inspiration in Trump and his MAGA pals. Hopefully Harrell will find his way to Muskworld and our city will find real leadership.
Ah, actually Harrell is one of the smartest guys in town! As a big city mayor, you think starting a crap flinging fight with Trump or his toadies would be the smart thing to do? Mayor Bruce has real life stuff to get done besides fighting tooth and nail with the Feds….
Harrell is a long time political player….gotta love how he has this folky shift to the Left at election time to pick up Liberal votes and a little zag to Right when he’s in office. Brilliant politicking there, by gawd.
As far as “real” political leadership….. who on the Left could run against Mayor Bruce? I mean ‘Merica loves a football star! Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see somebody on the Left run a real campaign for Seattle mayor..but who?
@Tacomee, with the exception of McGinn, Seattle has elected the same mayor prototype for decades. The connected, business candidate. I can see why progressives don’t want to throw their money at this when they’re more likely to get traction with City Council candidates.
Curious to see if ranked choice voting will be a game changer on this front.
No, campaigning from the left and governing from the right makes him a rather soggy, middling and ultra-typical politician who can only make bad policy decisions and who will only go out of his way to appease his biggest campaign donors. There’s nothing brilliant about following a political script written decades ago, a script where you don’t have to make real decisions, just follow the money from one day to the next.
Hi samm,
As a long time “Seattle guy” and a child of Lefty hippies, I’m often severely disappointed by neoliberals in Seattle. Everybody in the P.N.W is Liberal until it costs them something. That’s why it so hard to build anything in Seattle…. the “tree police” or the “historical preservation folks” don’t want a damn thing to change, because they like Seattle “just like it is”. We can’t seem to cut down a single fucking tree for housing. Or admit Seattle is tech city and no longer needs the port (and the few hundred jobs it provides). There is absolutely no room in Seattle for young or blue collar people. I’m deeply sorry.
As Hmmm stated, Harrell is pretty much a clone of every other mayor in my lifetime. A tiger can’t change its stripes I’m afraid.
We are most certainly doomed if he’s so easily swayed by tech mythology. Mildly curious how this revealed attitude affects his acolytes.