Annual governors’ gathering with White House unraveling after Trump excludes Democrats : NPR
President Donald Trump steps off Air Force One early Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md., after returning from a trip to Florida.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
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Mark Schiefelbein/AP
WASHINGTON — An annual meeting of the nation’s governors, which has long served as a rare bipartisan gathering, is collapsing after President Donald Trump excluded Democratic governors from events at the White House.
The National Governors Association said it would no longer hold a formal meeting with Trump when governors are scheduled to meet in Washington later this month, after the White House planned to invite only Republican governors. On Tuesday, 18 Democratic governors also announced they would boycott a traditional White House dinner.
“If reports that not all governors are invited to these events, which have historically been opportunities for productive, bipartisan collaboration, are true, we will not attend the White House dinner this year,” the Democrats wrote. “Democratic governors stand united and will never stop fighting to protect and improve the lives of the people of our states.”
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican who chairs the NGA, told his fellow governors in a letter Monday that the White House intends to limit invitations to the association’s annual business meeting, scheduled for Feb. 20, to Republican governors only.
“Because the NGA’s mission is to represent all 55 governors, the Association no longer serves as facilitator of this event and is no longer included in our official program,” Stitt wrote in the letter obtained by The Associated Press.
The governors’ group, scheduled to meet Feb. 19-21, is one of the few places where political leaders from both major parties come together to discuss key issues facing their communities. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that Trump has “the discretion to invite whoever he wants to the White House.”
“It’s the people’s house,” she said. “It’s also the president’s home, so he can invite whoever he wants to dinners and events here at the White House.”
Representatives for Sitt and the NGA did not comment on the letter. Brandon Tatum, CEO of the NGA, said in a statement last week that the White House meeting was an “important tradition” and said the organization was “disappointed by the administration’s decision to make it a partisan event this year.”
In his letter to the other governors, Stitt encouraged the group to unite around common goals.
“We cannot allow divisive action to achieve its goal of dividing us,” he wrote. “The solution is not to respond in kind, but to rise up and stay focused on our common duty to the people we serve. America’s governors have always been models of pragmatic leadership, and that example is most important when Washington gets distracted by politics.”
Signs of partisan tensions emerged during last year’s White House meeting, when Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills exchanged barbs.
Trump singled out the Democratic governor for her push to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports, threatening to withhold federal funding to the state if she did not comply. Mills responded, “We’ll see you in court.”
Trump later predicted that Mills’ political career would be over for opposing the order. She is now running for the U.S. Senate.
Those exchanges had a lasting impact on last year’s conference, and some Democratic governors did not renew their membership in the bipartisan group last year.
