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Gov. Baker Talks 'Red Flag' Law, MBTA And The GOP Race

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Gov. Charlie Baker in the WBUR studio on June 8, 2018 (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Gov. Charlie Baker in the WBUR studio on June 8, 2018 (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Gov. Charlie Baker joined Radio Boston in studio today for a special hour-long conversation. You can listen to it by hitting the play button atop this post.

The interview was part of our joint coverage of this political season, hosted by WBUR, The McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at UMass Boston and the Boston Globe.

Interview Highlights

On the so-called "red flag" bill and gun laws

I certainly support the Second Amendment and I don't believe anything that we've done here in Massachusetts violates that. I think the vast majority of the gun laws that we have in Massachusetts create processes and ensure that people who have a license to carry in Massachusetts and have the ability to buy firearms are people who have been trained and gone through the requisite requirements associated with that have been signed off on by ... their local police chief, and I think that's a good thing. I wish most other states worked like that.

On the MBTA and critics who say he doesn't have a transportation vision

Big vision does not equal tax increase. I mean, I would argue that for a very long time we mouthed all the words about a big vision but didn't actually take care of business at home.

The amount of time and effort that we had to spend as an administration after we took office to simply put the pieces back together again at the MBTA is extraordinary. We didn't have an asset management plan. We had a formula that people updated every year.

...

[V]ision is making the thing work. Making it reliable and dependable enough so somebody would get out of their car and take it because they believe it's going to get them where they need to go. And I would argue that when we took office that was the, that was the biggest problem with the public transportation system.

On Scott Lively and not talking about GOP primary debates

I don't want to get distracted at this point in time by other stuff, and there'll certainly be time to engage in the debate and the discussion around the primary, just as there will be time to engage in the same debate, if we're fortunate enough to win the primary, in the general election. And that's how it should be; agreeing to a debate would be distracting. I just think for now I'm going to focus on my day job, and I think frankly that's where most people would want us to be.

This article was originally published on June 07, 2018.

This segment aired on June 8, 2018.

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