The National Governors Association has withdrawn from facilitating its traditional annual meeting at the White House this week after President Donald Trump declined to invite two Democratic governors, fracturing a century-old bipartisan custom.
For more than 100 years, the NGA has coordinated gatherings between state executives of both parties and the sitting president, using the occasion to highlight shared priorities and strengthen federal-state cooperation. That practice was disrupted after Trump refused to include Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado and Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland on the invitation list.
Moore, who serves as the NGA’s vice chair, sought to lower the temperature in an interview Wednesday.
“I have no desire to have beef with the president of the United States,” Moore said. “I didn’t run for governor like, man, I can’t wait so me and the president can go toe to toe. But the fact that he is waking up in the middle of the night and tweeting about me, I just, I pray for him and I just feel bad for him because that has just got to be a really, really hard existence.”
The president has blamed the latter for his role on the ongoing ecological disaster happening on the Potomac River.
The president is expected to proceed with hosting governors at the White House on Friday during the NGA’s winter conference in Washington. However, the association will no longer serve as the official organizer or list the event in its formal program, citing the exclusion of the two Democrats.
Trump publicly criticized both governors on social media, describing them as “not worthy of being there.”
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Polis said he was uncertain about the president’s reasoning but underscored the importance of bipartisan engagement among governors.
“I’ve spent quality time with my colleagues this morning and really learning from one another and taking best practices that Republican or Democratic governors have launched in their state,” Polis said. “It’s really what these meetings are about.”
The dispute reflects what several governors described as a more confrontational tone in Trump’s second term toward certain state officials. The president has previously threatened to withhold federal funding from jurisdictions that resist administration policies and has suggested deploying federal forces in response to local opposition.
