Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills’ public dust-up with President Donald Trump throughout a White Home assembly with most of America’s state leaders didn’t reside as much as governors’ collective aim of “disagree[ing] higher,” the Nationwide Governors Affiliation chairman stated Saturday.
Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis was requested concerning the trade – through which Trump challenged Maine to conform together with his govt order on transgender athletes at school sports activities, and Mills advised Trump “see you in court docket.”
The president remarked that any state that doesn’t align its scholastic athletics with organic sexes won’t obtain federal funding.
“As governors, we’ve our prior initiative that we proceed to work on is to disagree higher,” Chairman Polis stated.
“We at all times hope that folks can disagree in a method that elevates the discourse and tries to come back to a typical resolution round . . . what the problem is. I don’t assume that that disagreement is essentially a mannequin of that,” he continued, including that some governors could not have recognized the origins of the fiery trade on the time.
Polis stated governors do have the correct to sue the federal authorities however that there are additionally different methods to know the place respective events are coming from.
“It was a bit uncomfortable within the room,” added NGA Vice Chairman Kevin Stitt, Oklahoma’s GOP governor.
“However like, like Governor Polis stated, I wasn’t certain precisely what the backstory was behind the battle there. Apparently, there had been some issues that each side have stated.”
Stitt remarked that the trade could have been “good politics” for each Mills and Trump with their respective bases.
He added that he personally agrees with Trump’s stance and famous that he led a push in 2022 to make sure that scholastic athletes are competing in opposition to folks of their very own organic intercourse in Oklahoma.

“The NCAA has adopted that, I believe the Olympics have. After which you’ve got a governor saying that they’re not going to observe that. So, I don’t know what authorized background she has, however they talked about seeing one another in court docket. And we’ll we’ll see what occurs on it.”
Polis added that Mills maintained that she is following present federal regulation beneath her present stance.
Later, Stitt stated that Trump had invited all governors to provide him a name, and had quipped that if a Democrat and a Republican name on the identical time, he’ll take the Democrat’s name first.
“He’s a businessman. He’s not ideological. He desires to get issues completed,” Stitt stated.
On the White Home assembly, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey efficiently requested cupboard officers to share their direct strains, to higher facilitate cooperation between states and the Trump administration.
That nugget was revealed by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, who quipped that ther president had additionally provided governors an open line – however didn’t explicitly publicize his quantity.
“I’ve bought it, however I’m going to carry onto it,” McMaster joked.
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