You just returned from D.C. for the annual National Governors Association meeting, and you attended an event with the president, along with other Democratic and Republican governors. What did you discuss with the other governors while you were there? Well, you go to the White House with the expectation that you’re going to hear the president articulate some vision for the future. It’s supposed to be an opportunity to talk about how governors and states can work with a new administration. That wasn’t what this was about. The meeting began with an address by Stephen Miller, and then later the president came out and began by recounting that he’s got the highest approval rating of anybody this early in his tenure, that he won the election not once, not twice, but three times, and then continued with a litany of conspiracy theories and false information. So it was unfortunate because I’m there as governor thinking: Let’s have a conversation about maybe where we can work together, right? How can we focus on the needs of everyday Americans? But unfortunately, we didn’t see any of that. What was also upsetting is that we saw him attack another governor.
The governor of Maine. The governor of Maine. Now remember, a few weeks ago he attacked Illinois and Governor Pritzker. He attacked Governor Hochul in New York recently. He’s now very gratuitously, in a way that seemed very manufactured in the moment, attacked the governor of Maine.
This was about his executive order to do with transgender rights, and he called her out, and then she responded, basically, that she would follow the laws of her state. And the federal government.
And the federal government, and that she would see him in court. And that didn’t seem to go down well. No. And it was about transgender rights, but it wasn’t about transgender rights. He is doing what he has typically done, which is, I am going to throw out some issue. Let that be the distraction. Let that distract everyone from the fact that my poll numbers are tanking, people don’t like what Elon Musk and DOGE are doing and let’s get everybody’s eye off the ball. So let me go pick on this particular governor about an action that she hasn’t even taken. She has not even taken an action around transgender issues, and yet he manufactures something, and she appropriately says, I’m going to follow state and federal law, Mr. President, which I think is the right answer. You want your elected officials to follow state and federal law. What I saw as so upsetting in that exchange was when he looked at her, and I was sitting at the table, and he leered at her, and he said, “We are the federal law.”
What did you hear when he said that? I heard somebody who thinks he’s king. Congress makes the laws. I may not agree with everything Congress does, but that’s a democracy. That’s how our system works. Congress makes the laws. The judiciary enforces the laws and determines the application of the law. And the executive, and I’m an executive, my job is to faithfully apply and execute the law. And so, that’s a problem. He doesn’t believe that Congress makes the law. He believes that he makes the law. That’s what he said. The other thing he said: You will see no federal funding. Which, again, is counter to the way our system operates. Congress appropriates funds. Congress debates and figures out where funding is going to go. And the idea that he’s going to withhold, weaponize funding is terrible.