The dizzying array of executive orders that President Donald Trump is handing down has put state and local government officials in Massachusetts in steady monitoring mode, and the mayor of Boston says her team has been busy assessing risks and trying to understand "what is real and what is not real."

Trump moved immediately after his Jan. 20 inauguration to deliver on promises to shrink government and tailor federal policies to suit his political agenda. Opponents have successfully tied up some orders in court, and the president has continued to identify and eliminate spending he sees as fraudulent or wasteful.

In Democrat-heavy Massachusetts, where voters preferred Kamala Harris over Trump, elected officials charged with balancing budgets and delivering on their own agendas have elevated levels of concern about the federal revenues they have long counted on, as well as trepidation about impacts of policy-related executive orders.

"The things that we are changing are shoring up and protecting against risks that are coming from the federal government," Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said during an interview Wednesday on GBH Radio. "We have had to look at all the funding that we've been allocated and really ensure that the legal language is there in contracts to protect them and to work with the Attorney General [Andrea] Campbell and other colleagues to push back in places where those executive orders have already crossed the line."

Wu mentioned discussions about education and public health spending and executive orders on transportation and research and medical funding, a longstanding cornerstone of the state's identity and economy.

"We are looking to do what we can do and to identify the places where we can continue expanding our work through partnerships," Wu said. "We've had just a very, very strong relationship with state government and the Healey administration and our partners on how we will stand as a united front. We've had a very strong partnership with local philanthropic and private sector institutions who also understand their obligation and their opportunity to stand in the gap now."

Trump's executive order pace and volume has also caught the attention of Massachusetts House Speaker Ron Mariano, who declared earlier this month that "we've lost our federal partner."

"The speed with which these changes keep firing out of Washington, it's at a speed that is far faster than my simple brain can comprehend," Mariano told reporters Feb. 3.

Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the president's team is focused on "further action to make our federal government more efficient and effective," noting the signing of an executive order to implement a Department of Government Efficiency Workforce Optimization Initiative.

"Agency heads will coordinate and consult with DOGE to significantly shrink the size of the federal workforce and limit hiring to essential positions only," she said. "The unaccountable bureaucracy will finally be reined in."

Wu said Boston plans to "lean on our resources here, locally, the authority that we have within the city level and within city government" to pursue the city's climate resilience, housing and public education goals.

The city has "so far" not encountered situations that it is most worried about, the mayor said.

"What we've learned in the last several weeks since the inauguration is that it's one thing to issue a statement that seems to fulfill a campaign promise or something that was within Project 2025, and it's another thing to have that actually have legal force to be able to be implemented," Wu said.

She added, "Many of the most intense executive orders have already been stopped in the courts, and every day is a new set of actions that are taken in the legal and judicial system to be able to sort out what is real and what is not real. So far, we have not had direct impacts on the types of funding that we're most worried about because of the legal processes that are still playing out. Now, as those get resolved, we're monitoring very closely to see if anything needs to be adjusted to the realities of what's happening."

While opponents have argued the president is exceeding his executive authority, the White House has pointed back at judges who have ruled against the Trump administration.

"The real constitutional crisis is taking place within our judicial branch, where district court judges in liberal districts across the country are abusing their power to unilaterally block President Trump's basic executive authority," Leavitt said Wednesday, according to a transcript. "We believe these judges are acting as judicial activists rather than honest arbiters of the law, and they have issued at least 12 injunctions against this administration in the past 14 days, often without citing any evidence or grounds for their lawsuits."

Leavitt added: "As the president clearly stated in the Oval Office yesterday, we will comply with the law and the courts, but we will also continue to seek every legal remedy to ultimately overturn these radical injunctions and ensure President Trump's policies can be enacted."

In a seven-page letter Wednesday to the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, U.S. Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren wrote that "funding freezes and cuts at NIH and NSF have caused chaos and confusion at Massachusetts research institutions."

The senators said the agencies are the largest public funders of research in the U.S. and fuel the development of medical breakthroughs and lifesaving disease treatments. In fiscal 2023 alone, the senators wrote, the NIH awarded $3.5 billion "in grants in contracts in Massachusetts that directly supported 28,842 jobs and nearly $7.5 billion in economic activity."

"After weeks of illegal and unprecedented funding cut offs, communication pauses, and cuts to indirect cost rates, patients, medical workers, researchers, and residents throughout the states are scared and confused about the future of research programs and clinical trials at their local hospitals and universities," the senators wrote. "The chaos caused by the Trump administration is unacceptable - and you owe researchers and patients in Massachusetts and beyond an explanation about what is going on at your agencies."

Boston's focus on contracting with minority-owned businesses is also "not at all" at risk, Wu said.

"When you look at the reality of our communities, when you look at disparities that exist between outcomes on health and longevity, or household income or home ownership, it's very clear that, historically, policies have led us to this point, and that policies are needed to ensure that we're all benefiting from the full participation of our entire community, economically and otherwise," the mayor said. "And so our city is known as the safest city in the country. We have been seeing job growth and a desire to be part of Boston, and major companies moving here like Lego and others, because of what Boston represents, and it's because of the policies that really focus on closing gaps and including everyone."

Wu also previewed some of her messaging as she prepares to testify in Washington, D.C. on March 5. Wu has been called to testify with the mayors of Denver, Chicago and New York on immigration issues.

In a Jan. 27 letter to Wu, U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer of Kentucky said his panel was "investigating sanctuary jurisdictions across the United States and their impact on public safety and the effectiveness of federal efforts to enforce the immigration laws of the United States."

Comer wrote that Boston is a sanctuary jurisdiction under the Boston Trust Act and said the city "is also subject to Massachusetts’s judicial precedent finding ICE detainers an unlawful exercise of state power." He requested that Wu confirm her plans to testify and to produce an array of documents and communications.

"These [sanctuary] jurisdictions take it upon themselves to decide what laws they will and will not abide by all for the purpose of shielding removable aliens, especially criminals, from federal law enforcement," Comer wrote. "There are about 12 states and hundreds of cities and counties with sanctuary laws or policies across the country. Four cities, however, stand out in their abject failure to comply with federal law: Chicago, New York City, Denver, and Boston. Citizens of all four cities have suffered due to sanctuary policies."

Panel members "could be screaming at you for 45 minutes," GBH co-host Margery Eagan said to Wu.

"Or six hours I hear," the mayor responded.

"It really was not presented as an optional choice for us to go or not go," Wu said. "And I gladly am taking the opportunity to go down to D.C. and defend our city, defend our policies and values that have led us to become the safest city in the country."

The mayor said "framing" around the event has focused on how immigration policies are "somehow creating opportunity for dangerous and violent behavior to thrive in our cities."

"In fact, we represent the opposite," she said. "If you look at the facts, gun violence has been at the lowest levels every single year during our administration, and Boston has had policies on the books that allow us to ensure that everyone is part of keeping our community safe, knowing that you can reach out to call 911 when you need help, knowing that you can report information that you have safely, and knowing you can bring your child to school, be part of our community where immigration status is neither a barrier to receiving services, nor a shield to behavior" involving violence "where you will be held accountable, regardless of immigration status as well. I think we are the clear example and proof on both counts that this is a community that represents, in fact, what many other cities are asking us, what they should do on public safety."