Gov. Janet Mills won’t be attending Friday’s breakfast meeting for governors at the White House.
That comes as the National Governors Association pulled out of the annual meeting after President Donald Trump blacklisted two Democratic governors, Maryland’s Wes Moore and Colorado’s Jared Polis.
The Associated Press called the meeting “one of Washington’s few remaining bipartisan gatherings.”
In a Friday morning statement, Mills said she would not attend the meeting because Trump has turned it into an “unproductive vanity project.”
“I want to address the very serious issues facing Maine people – issues that, I believe, have been made worse by the Trump Administration – but it’s become increasingly clear that the President is not serious about hosting a bipartisan meeting of the nation’s governors or hearing these concerns, which is why the NGA, in a significant move, has withdrawn its support for the traditional meeting,” the governor said.
It follows days of contradictory messaging from the Trump administration over the governors meeting.
Initially, Trump uninvited all Democratic governors to the White House. But later the same day, the administration claimed it would host a dinner for all governors, Republican and Democratic, except for Moore and Polis.
That prompted Mills and other governors to boycott the meeting.
Days later Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, said that Trump had agreed to invite Moore and Polis. The president then quickly took to Truth Social, a social media platform he holds a majority-ownership stake of, to deny that and call Stitt, who chairs the National Governors Association, a “RINO,” or “Republican In Name Only.”
It’s not the first time the annual governors meeting has been a source of political fireworks.
Last February, Trump singled out Maine during a Republican governors meeting in Washington. The next day Trump and Mills crossed paths at the governors event at the White House. In a heated exchange, Trump pressed Mills on the state’s policy toward transgender athletes and the governor told the president that she would “see you in court.”
In response, Trump launched a pressure campaign against Maine, threatening to withhold federal funds from the state if it didn’t align with him on trans athletes. Six federal agencies launched sprawling Title IX investigations into the state government, the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association, the University of Maine System and a high school.
That culminated last April in a lawsuit in which the U.S. Department of Justice accused Maine of discriminating against girls and women and failing to protect them in sports.
Out of the about 45,000 students who participated in high school sports in Maine, just two are transgender.
That case is still winding its way through the courts.
