{"id":452,"date":"2025-02-23T22:49:14","date_gmt":"2025-02-23T22:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/02\/23\/democratic-governors-balance-whether-to-fight-or-pacify-after-trump-threatens-one-of-their-own-the-associated-press\/"},"modified":"2025-02-23T22:49:14","modified_gmt":"2025-02-23T22:49:14","slug":"democratic-governors-balance-whether-to-fight-or-pacify-after-trump-threatens-one-of-their-own-the-associated-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/02\/23\/democratic-governors-balance-whether-to-fight-or-pacify-after-trump-threatens-one-of-their-own-the-associated-press\/","title":{"rendered":"Democratic governors balance whether to fight or pacify after Trump threatens one of their own – The Associated Press"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump\u2019s real-time confrontation with Maine\u2019s governor<\/a><\/span> over transgender athletes<\/a><\/span> captured the conundrum many Democratic governors are facing in the Republican\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n

Gov. Janet Mills\u2019 vow that she would see Trump in court over his threat to withhold money from the state if it didn\u2019t comply with his executive order delighted Democrats who want more strident pushback. But the dust-up that played out in the open Friday as Trump hosted governors at the White House ticked off a president known to retaliate against people he considers enemies. <\/p>\n

Hours after the spat, the federal Department of Education announced it was initiating an investigation into the Maine Department of Education over the inclusion of trans athletes. Trump doesn\u2019t want them playing in girls and women\u2019s sports; Maine law bars discrimination based on gender identity.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny time a public interaction like that takes place, it\u2019s coming from a person who\u2019s grounded in their values,\u201d Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in an interview Sunday. \u201cI love Janet Mills and I appreciate her for standing up. I also know that there\u2019s always a cost that comes with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Democrats who lead the nation\u2019s most populous states were in Washington for a meeting of the National Governors Association, where they tried to strike a balance between their states\u2019 needs and their feelings about Trump. <\/p>\n

Whitmer, known for clashing with Trump during his first term over the federal COVID-19 response, campaigned vigorously against him in 2024 on behalf of Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. Whitmer said she sat next to Trump at a White House dinner on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was the only Democrat at the table. I was a little surprised. I think everyone in the room was a little surprised, to be honest,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I took the opportunity to talk a little bit about tariffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michigan and other states could be significantly affected by some of the president\u2019s early proposals. For example, Michigan expects nearly 42% of its budget to come from federal funds and relies heavily on trade with Canada, which now faces potential Trump-imposed trade penalties.<\/p>\n

A federal judge is considering a request to block the administration from freezing trillions of dollars in grants and loans, a move that could severely impact states. At the same time, Trump\u2019s key ally, Elon Musk, is pushing to shrink the federal government, with likely ripples nationwide. About 80% of the roughly 2 million people in the federal workforce live outside metro Washington, dispersed across the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very worried that people are going to make make decisions without a real understanding of what the ramifications are going to be for the American public,\u201d Whitmer said. Musk, she said, is \u201cdangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

At discussion panels and news conferences at the meetings, state leaders struck a conciliatory tone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always hope that people can disagree in a way that elevates the discourse and tries to come to a common solution,\u201d said Democratic Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado, the association\u2019s chair, when asked about the Trump-Mills exchange. \u201cI don\u2019t think that disagreement was necessarily a model of that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., met with Trump for more than an hour on Friday afternoon to discuss Manhattan\u2019s congestion tolling<\/a><\/span>. Trump ordered a halt to the program, a key Hochul priority, and declared in a social media post: \u201cLong live the king!\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about the meeting, Hochul told CBS\u2019 \u201cFace the Nation\u201d that it was \u201cadversarial\u201d and said New Yorkers \u201cneed to know I\u2019m willing to take the fight wherever I have to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to sit idly by and let our rights be attacked,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ll work with you when there\u2019s common ground, no doubt about it, let\u2019s build great projects and infrastructure. There\u2019s areas where we\u2019re going to work with you on immigration and getting the violent criminals off our streets. We do not dispute that, but don\u2019t think that you can just come in and bully us around and not expect a reaction from governors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whitmer said she had a chance to speak with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth<\/a><\/span> and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, in addition to Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got to put the people\u2019s interests before my own interests, before my partisan interest. I got a job to do,\u201d said Whitmer, considered a top-tier potential candidate for the 2028 Democratic nomination for president. \u201cSo even if it\u2019s uncomfortable, even if, you know, it\u2019s all the all the things you would assume, on a personal level, that\u2019s second to my job as governor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hundreds of miles from Washington, another 2028 contender took a different direction. <\/p>\n

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, in his State of the State address on Wednesday, compared the Trump administration to the Nazi movement and criticized members of his own party, declaring, \u201cGoing along to get along does not work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pritzker\u2019s response resonated with some key voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t elect Democrats to become collaborators with our oppressors,\u201d said Lori Goldman, founder of \u201cFems for Dems,\u201d a Michigan-based group focused on voter turnout.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are beyond angry and we are organizing against Democrats that sell us out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump\u2019s real-time confrontation with Maine\u2019s governor over transgender athletes captured the conundrum many Democratic governors are facing in the Republican\u2019s second term. Gov. Janet Mills\u2019 vow that she would see Trump in court over his threat to withhold money from the state if it didn\u2019t comply with his executive order […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}