Nashville Mayor Bucks Boycott, Meets With President

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Nashville Mayor Megan Barry met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office Wednesday, bucking a boycott by other cities’ leaders who are in the nation’s capital for a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Barry’s spokesman Sean Braisted confirmed that the mayor was invited to the White House to discuss infrastructure, according to The Tennessean.

The White House invited 109 mayors to the meeting but New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu - the latter of whom chairs the mayors’ conference - announced a boycott to protest the meeting following a crackdown by the Justice Department on sanctuary cities.

Nevertheless, Barry opted to attend in “hopes of hearing a commitment from the administration on federal funding for infrastructure investments,” Braisted told The Tennessean.

Though officially the mayor’s position is nonpartisan, Barry is a known Democrat and was an open supporter of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 general election.

Though she leads a deeply blue city, albeit in a red state, Barry has frequently opted to keep her criticism of Trump subtle and glancing, particularly on sanctuary cities (technically, Nashville is not one) and immigration.

She did strike a more direct hit last week during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, when her comments alluded to “a whole of lot racism” out of the White House and referenced allegations the president had paid hush money to a porn star after a 2006 sexual encounter.

Interestingly, Barry took a surprise phone call from Trump in the days before his inauguration. The topic? Infrastructure.

Photo via Office of the Mayor