WASHINGTON — It’s supposed to be a rare respite from partisanship, an opportunity for the president and the nation’s governors to break bread and commit to jointly solving America’s problems.
But President Trump has turned a routine annual tradition into a political food fight. And the controversy that has erupted over the White House dinner for the National Governors Association on Saturday highlights the difficulties many Democrats face in balancing their opposition to Trump with the need to work with him in the interest of their states.
“It’s not a perfect relationship, I’m not going to lie to you there,” Delaware Governor Matt Meyer, who has clashed with Trump over an offshore wind project, said Thursday at the hotel where the governors are holding their winter meeting. “It doesn’t help when the president and his divisive language . . . and policy making [is] coming out of the federal administration, but I’m here to collaborate with my other governors and see what are ways that we can work together.”
But that tone of collaboration won’t be reflected in the attendance at Saturday’s White House dinner.
After some initial confusion over whether only Republican governors were invited, Trump said on Truth Social last week the dinner was open to all except for two Democrats: Wes Moore of Maryland and Colorado’s Jared Polis.
Trump has ongoing disputes with both. He’s had particularly sharp clashes with Moore, a rising Democratic star and the nation’s only Black governor, who is also vice chair of the governor’s association. The exclusions didn’t sit well with some of their fellow governors, including the NGA’s Republican chair, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt.
Stitt said the NGA would not officially organize the dinner or a working breakfast with Trump on Friday morning, but leave it up to each governor to decide whether they would attend. And 18 Democratic governors, including Meyer, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Dan McKee of Rhode Island, and Janet Mills of Maine, publicly declared they would skip the traditional dinner on Saturday.
Several, including Healey, are also skipping the White House breakfast on Friday.
“President Trump has made this whole thing a farce. He doesn’t want to work together,” Healey said in a statement Thursday, adding the president is “afraid to hear the truth” about the effects of his policies. “As governor, I work with people of all parties to get things done. . . . But if the president doesn’t want a serious discussion about how we can deliver for the American people, then we aren’t going to waste our time.”
Also joining the boycott of the dinner is Vermont Republican Governor Phil Scott.
“The NGA is important. It’s bipartisanship,” Scott told reporters earlier in February. “We need to bring our country back together, and there’s no better area to do that than, I think, the National Governors Association’s longstanding tradition of going to the White House.”
Trump was greeted with applause Friday morning by the 22 governors—12 Republicans and 10 Democrats—who attended the breakfast in the State Dining Room along with some Cabinet secretaries. Moore, who had said he’d skip the event earlier in the week, appeared to have reconsidered and was present at the breakfast.
But unlike last year’s working session with governors, which was televised, Trump asked the media to leave after about a minute on Friday. Afterward, Moore told reporters it was “a productive meeting” despite the controversy leading up to it.
Stitt’s decision to pull the NGA’s official backing of the White House events angered Trump, who branded the conservative a “RINO,” a Republican In Name Only. But Stitt said he was simply honoring the organization’s history of bipartisanship. Republicans and Democrats alternate chairing the group each year, with a governor from the other party serving as vice chair.
“You can invite whoever you want to the White House, but it can’t be an NGA event if it’s not inclusive of all 50 governors,” Stitt said during a joint appearance with Moore on Wednesday hosted by the Economic Club of Washington, D.C.
Stitt said he still supports Trump and plans to attend the White House breakfast and dinner. Moore said that despite the snub, the governors still would be working across party lines on immigration, transportation and other problems.
“It’s reminding all the governors that the NGA is bigger than who sits in the White House,” Moore said Thursday during another joint appearance with Stitt at a Politico event. “That bond is stronger than one person.”
The annual White House dinner with the governors is not usually controversial, stressing cooperation over confrontation.
Before toasting the governors at the 2003 dinner, Republican President George W. Bush, a former governor himself, said, “I believe if we work together, we can do a lot of good things.”
Former Arizona Democratic governor Janet Napolitano was at the 2003 dinner as the NGA chair and said the controversy this year “sends the wrong signal to the American people.”
“What a missed opportunity to have all the nation’s governors in one place at one time, working with and not against an administration,” she told the Globe. “It’s just partisan silliness run amok.”
Working across party lines is more difficult for Democratic governors given Trump’s efforts to target Democratic-run states with investigations and withholding of federal money, Napolitano said.
But Democrats still need to try. New York Governor Kathy Hochul has been negotiating with the White House over the release of millions of dollars in funding for a Hudson River tunnel project Trump had frozen. Healey has pushed Trump to keep open a new federal medical research hub in Cambridge. And McKee and Meyer have been fighting Trump’s attempts to shut down offshore wind projects.
When the governors met with Trump last winter, he clashed in front of the cameras with Mills over Maine’s policy of allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s and girls sports. Mills said she was just following state and federal law and would see Trump in court. Trump said he welcomed it.
“I look forward to that — that should be a real easy one,” Trump said. “Enjoy your life after governor because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.”
Several weeks later, the Trump administration sued Maine for not complying with an executive order banning transgender athletes in women’s and girls sports. The case is ongoing.
Meanwhile, Mills, who cannot run for governor again because of term limits, is now seeking the Democratic nomination for Senate to challenge incumbent Republican Susan Collins.
Healey told the Globe Friday afternoon that she had no regrets about skipping this year’s White House breakfast with Trump but still will try to find ways to engage administration officials.
“I continue to be somebody who wants to work with the federal administration when it is advancing the interests of the people of Massachusetts,” she said. “And where they do things that are harmful to the people of Massachusetts, I’m going to continue push back and fight back.”
Polis said it was “a badge of honor” in his political circles not to be dining with Trump, but he still planned to try to work with him.
“We always extend the hand of friendship and work with our federal partners,” Polis told the Globe Thursday.
Trump said on Truth Social last week that he would welcome all the governors who come to the White House.
“I look forward to seeing the Republican Governors, and some of the Democrats Governors who were worthy of being invited, but most of whom won’t show up,” he wrote.
Paul Heintz of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Jim Puzzanghera can be reached at jim.puzzanghera@globe.com. Follow him @JimPuzzanghera.