Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills’ public dust-up with President Donald Trump during a White House meeting with most of America’s state leaders didn’t live up to governors’ collective goal of “disagree[ing] better,” the National Governors Association chairman said Saturday.
Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis was asked about the exchange – in which Trump challenged Maine to comply with his executive order on transgender athletes in school sports, and Mills told Trump “see you in court.” The president remarked that any state that does not align its scholastic athletics with biological sexes will not receive federal funding.
“As governors, we have our prior initiative that we continue to work on is to disagree better,” Chairman Polis said.
“We always hope that people can disagree in a way that elevates the discourse and tries to come to a common solution around . . . what the issue is. I don’t think that that disagreement is necessarily a model of that,” he continued, adding that some governors may not have known the origins of the fiery exchange at the time.
OK Gov. Kevin Stitt speaks as Gov. Jared Polis listens at the NGA in Washington (Fox News/Charlie Creitz)
Polis said governors do have the right to sue the federal government but that there are also other ways to understand where respective parties are coming from.
“It was a little uncomfortable in the room,” added NGA Vice Chairman Kevin Stitt, Oklahoma’s GOP governor.
“But like, like Governor Polis said, I wasn’t sure exactly what the backstory was behind the conflict there. Apparently, there had been some things that both sides have said.”
Stitt remarked that the exchange may have been “good politics” for both Mills and Trump with their respective bases.
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He added that he personally agrees with Trump’s stance and noted that he led a push in 2022 to ensure that scholastic athletes are competing against people of their own biological sex in Oklahoma.
“The NCAA has followed that, I think the Olympics have. And then you have a governor saying that they’re not going to follow that. So, I don’t know what legal background she has, but they talked about seeing each other in court. And we’ll we’ll see what happens on it.”
Polis added that Mills maintained that she is following current federal law under her current stance.
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Later, Stitt said that Trump had invited all governors to give him a call, and had quipped that if a Democrat and a Republican call at the same time, he will take the Democrat’s call first.
“He is a businessman. He is not ideological. He wants to get things done,” Stitt said.
At the White House meeting, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey successfully asked cabinet officials to share their direct lines, to better facilitate cooperation between states and the Trump administration.
That nugget was revealed by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, who quipped that ther president had also offered governors an open line – but did not explicitly publicize his number.
“I’ve got it, but I’m going to hold onto it,” McMaster joked.
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