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Charlie Baker says he could see himself supporting Liz Cheney for president

Also, the governor is an Evanescence fan, apparently.

By Marta Hill

August 18, 2022

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Just a few days after Rep. Liz Cheney’s dramatic loss in the Wyoming GOP primaries, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker indicated on GBH that, depending on how the field fills out, he could see himself supporting her in a possible presidential campaign in 2024. 

“I think Liz Cheney has shown an enormous amount of integrity, front and center, all the way through this whole process. She, probably better than most, knew what the consequences — politically, anyway — of making the decision that she made would end up being,” Baker said. 

“I have said since Jan. 6 that I will do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office — and I mean it,” Cheney said during her concession speech on Tuesday.

Baker addressed Cheney in response to a text from a GBH listener during the Aug. 18 “Ask the Governor” episode. 

“She kind of had a nail on the head when she said, ‘You’re not swearing an oath to a party. You’re not swearing an oath to a person, you’re swearing an oath to a country,’” Baker said. 

Cheney, a third-term congresswoman, will continue in her leadership role on the congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack until it dissolves at the end of the year. Speaking to NBC in the wake of her primary loss, Cheney declined to say if she would run for president but conceded it’s “something that I’m thinking about.”

The architect of ‘Dad’s Playlist’

Presidential possibilities were just one of the topics Baker addressed over the hour-long radio show; he also covered the recent reforms of marijuana laws, trail maintenance, and electric vehicle rebates. 

The marijuana bill, which the legislature passed Aug. 1, in part works to help disenfranchised cannabis entrepreneurs by steering 15% of the state excise tax on recreational pot sales into a fund to support them. 

“If you look, for the most part, the folks who’ve set up a lot of the dispensaries and a lot of the growth facilities, they were people who had a lot of capital and resources to begin with,” Baker said. “And one of the things people wanted to do by legalizing marijuana was create an opportunity for a lot of folks who have not had an opportunity to get into these kinds of businesses historically to get into these businesses.”

One caller, from Groton, wanted to know what is being done to get the commonwealth’s trails in better shape. Baker, faulting his legislative colleagues for the lack of funding, emphasized that his administration has requested “hundreds of millions of dollars” to invest in the Department of Conservation and Recreation park system but has received only “a pittance of that.”

“One of the reasons we’ve been asking the legislature for such significant amounts of money is because we know we have a lot of work that needs to be done here. And we know that the work we have done has made people really happy,” Baker said. 

As for electrical vehicles, the reason EV rebates haven’t gone into effect yet is because the money for the rebates is actually in the economic development bill (instead of a climate bill as one might expect), Baker said to a listener’s question.

After being asked if he has heard the “Charlie (Baker) on the MTA” song parody recorded in response to the pending Orange Line closure (the answer was no), Baker shared a fun tidbit: He sends his daughter a song almost every morning. 

“I do it because she doesn’t live here and I miss her, and so I send her a song every day to remind her and remind me that I miss her,” Baker said. “She actually has put these things on a Spotify account of hers, which is called Dad’s Playlist — there’s 1000 songs on it.”

Recent additions include “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire and “Bring Me to Life” by Evanescence, Baker said.

Material from the Associated Press was also used in this report.