Democratic Governors Fret Over Trump Decision To Bar Them From Annual Bipartisan White House Meeting

Democratic governors are expressing dismay that President Trump is ditching the decades-long tradition of inviting all of America’s governors to the White House for an annual meeting. Even though most Democrats have been afforded the opportunity to join him for dinner, two governors have been barred entirely — Governor Wes Moore of Maryland and Governor Jared Polis of Colorado. For more than 100 years, the National Governors Association has served as a bipartisan institution for governors of all parties to meet at conferences and discuss policy ideas and areas for cooperation. Presidents have for decades invited the group to meet annually at the White House for a meeting and later a black-tie dinner.Last year, however, it was clear that the meeting would not be a jovial, bipartisan affair. At one point, Governor Janet Mills of Maine got into a tense back-and-forth with Mr. Trump about his executive order to ban transgender students from girls’ and women’s sports. Maine at the time was not complying with the order, and vowed to challenge it in court. “Is Maine here — the governor of Maine?” Mr. Trump asked before Ms. Mills identified herself. “Are you not going to comply with it?”After saying she would comply with state and federal law, Mr. Trump said that if she did not follow his order, her state would “not get any federal funding at all.”“See you in court,” Ms. Mills shot back.“I look forward to that, that should be a real easy one,” Mr. Trump grumbled. “And enjoy your life after governor, because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.”On Friday, the New York Times first reported that Mr. Trump would not be allowing Democratic governors to attend this year’s meeting, though most Democrats will be allowed to attend the dinner. On Sunday, Mr. Moore — who serves as vice chairman of the NGA — said the move to bar him and Mr. Polis from dining at the White House was “confounding.” “This week, I learned that I was uninvited to this year’s National Governors Association dinner — a decades-long annual … tradition meant to bring governors from both parties together to build bonds and celebrate a shared service to our citizens with the President of the United States,” Mr. Moore said in a statement Sunday. “What makes it especially confounding is that just weeks ago I was at the White House with a bipartisan group of governors, working with the administration on reforms to lower energy costs and strengthen grid reliability,” he said. Mr. Moore wrote in his statement that there may have been some racial animus behind the decision to keep him from the meeting and the subsequent dinner. “As the nation’s only Black governor, I can’t ignore that being singled out for exclusion from this bipartisan tradition carries an added weight — whether that was the intent or not,” Mr. Moore wrote. A White House official tells the New York Sun that the dinner is in the president’s home, and therefore he can decide who will attend. “Many Democrats were invited to dinner at the White House, and others were not. These are White House events and the President reserves the right to invite whomever he wants,” the official says. In a statement to the Times, a spokeswoman for Mr. Polis said he “has always been willing to work with anyone across the political spectrum who wants to help work on the hardest problems facing Colorado and America, regardless of party or who occupies the White House.”On Friday, the NGA said in a statement Friday that to disinvite individual governors for political differences “undermines” the relationship between states and the federal government. “The bipartisan White House governors meeting is an important tradition, and we are disappointed in the administration’s decision to make it a partisan occasion this year,” the group said. “Traditionally the White House has played a role in fostering these moments during NGA’s annual meeting. This year, they will not.”The NGA since 1908 has served as a meeting ground for the entirety of the political spectrum. This past year, however, has seen the group face serious internal issues. Governor Tim Walz and Governor Laura Kelly of Kansas both withdrew from the organization last year, citing the NGA’s lack of response to what they saw as Mr. Trump’s overreach in interfering with state operations, including threats to deploy the military to American streets and the unilateral cancellation of state funds. That move was first reported by The Atlantic last year. Two other Democratic leaders, Governor Gavin Newsom of California and Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois — both of whom, like Mr. Moore, are seen as potential 2028 candidates — threatened to leave the NGA last year after Mr. Trump surged deportation agents to the streets of Los Angeles and Chicago. “The credibility of the National Governors Association — and our integrity as state executives—rests on our willingness to apply our principles consistently, regardless of which administration attacks them. Should National Governors Association leadership choose to remain silent, Illinois will have no choice but to withdraw from the organization,” Mr. Pritzker wrote to the organization’s chairman, Governor Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, last year. In a letter to the nation’s governors first obtained by Politico, Mr. Newsom said the NGA “has lost its voice and its way in the face of the Trump administration’s onslaught against democratic norms, including efforts to undermine the sovereignty of states as protected by the Tenth Amendment.”

Democratic Governors Fret Over Trump Decision To Bar Them From Annual Bipartisan White House Meeting

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