If you want to make us safe, pass gun reforms, stop cutting Medicaid, stop cutting cancer research, stop cutting funds for veterans. That is what will make our city safe.”

Mayor Michelle Wu is many things: Savvy politician, smart Harvard-trained lawyer, devoted mother. But none of those words really do her justice. The description I keep coming back to is the Chinese phrase: Hen li hai.

The much-hyped hearing, Wu’s first time on the national stage, turned out not to be so much of a show but more of a legal grilling of the mayor and three other city mayors aimed at getting them to