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WASHINGTON (AP) — Typically, the annual dinner with governors at the White House offers a rare opportunity for leaders from both political parties to set aside differences, enjoy each other’s company, and engage in a relaxed evening with the president. However, like several traditions during President Donald Trump’s second term, Saturday’s dinner stirred controversy.
Prior to the National Governors Association meeting this week, Trump criticized the group’s bipartisan leadership, specifically targeting Republican Governor Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma and Democratic Governor Wes Moore of Maryland. Initially, Trump excluded Moore and Colorado Governor Jared Polis from a White House working event scheduled for Friday, only to invite them at the last moment.
The gathering was abruptly cut short after Trump received news that the Supreme Court had invalidated his extensive tariff policy.
Many Democratic governors had threatened to boycott Saturday’s dinner if their colleagues were excluded from the Friday meeting. Despite Moore’s eventual inclusion, some Democrats remained firm in their decision to skip the event.
“President Trump has turned this entire affair into a mockery,” stated Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey.
When the dinner finally rolled around, no Democrats were spotted in the room. Enjoying the black-tie affair, with tall candles arranged on tables, were just top administration officials and Republican governors.
In brief remarks, Trump joked that state leaders “look in that mirror and say, I should be president, not him.”
The president didn’t criticize any Democrats by name, but he blamed two states led by Democratic governors when he mentioned a sewage spill in the Potomac River near Washington.
“We have to clean up some mess that Maryland and Virginia have left us,” Trump said, adding that “it’s unbelievable what they can do with incompetence.”
The ruptured pipe is part of a Washington-based utility that’s federally regulated and under the oversight of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Vice President JD Vance praised the governors for having to make tough decisions. When you’re in his position, Vance said, “nobody blames you when anything goes wrong.”
Those who have attended previous dinners said they offered a rare and helpful opportunity for governors to connect with the president and members of his Cabinet away from the pressure of daily governing. Some also said the dinner was a chance to connect with fellow governors from other parties whom they might not see very often.
Asa Hutchinson, the former Republican governor of Arkansas who briefly challenged Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, recalled being assigned to a table one year with then-Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo and getting to know her family.
“It’s a glowing evening in the White House,” Hutchinson, who once chaired the NGA, said in an interview.
The final day of the conference on Saturday focused on issues including affordability and political civility. During a conversation about immigration, Moore and Stitt said that both parties have failed over decades to address the issue.
Stitt said that states should be empowered to issue workforce permits and warned that both parties are making false political assumptions.
“People think ‘OK, all the Democrats want open borders,’” he said, “and ‘all Republicans hate immigrants.’”
But Stitt noted that “rural Oklahoma Trump voters” have privately approached him, saying they couldn’t operate their businesses without people who were trying to obtain work authorization.
For all the turmoil surrounding this week’s meeting, Moore said the conference was a success.
“There were a lot of things that were put in our way to try to distract us from our mission, to try to divide us as individual governors, to try to make the mission of this organization where a bipartisan group of governors can come together and solve problems on behalf of our people, to try to make our work irrelevant,” he said. “To all the people who tried to make that happen, you failed.”