{"id":483016,"date":"2026-02-22T02:11:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T02:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/483016\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T02:11:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T02:11:10","slug":"white-house-dinner-closes-a-turbulent-week-for-governors-in-dc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/483016\/","title":{"rendered":"White House dinner closes a turbulent week for governors in DC"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The annual dinner with governors at the White House is typically a chance for leaders from both parties to come together, socialize and spend a low-key evening with the president. But like many traditions during President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> second term, Saturday\u2019s dinner has proven unusually controversial. <\/p>\n

Ahead of this week\u2019s gathering of the National Governors Association, Trump ridiculed the bipartisan group\u2019s leadership, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma and Democratic Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland.<\/a> He refused to invite Moore, along with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, to a working event at the White House<\/a> on Friday \u2014 only to relent at the last minute.<\/p>\n

Then the event ended shortly after Trump learned of the Supreme Court\u2019s decision<\/a> to strike down his sweeping tariff policy.<\/p>\n

Dozens of Democrats had threatened to boycott Saturday\u2019s dinner if members of their party were blocked from Friday\u2019s meeting. But even after Moore\u2019s attendance, some said they still wouldn\u2019t show up.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump has made this whole thing a farce,\u201d Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

In brief remarks, Trump joked that state leaders \u201clook in that mirror and say, I should be president, not him.\u201d <\/p>\n

The president didn\u2019t criticize any Democrats by name, but he blamed two states led by Democratic governors when he mentioned a sewage spill<\/a> in the Potomac River near Washington. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to clean up some mess that Maryland and Virginia have left us,\u201d Trump said, adding that \u201cit\u2019s unbelievable what they can do with incompetence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ruptured pipe is part of a Washington-based utility that\u2019s federally regulated and under the oversight of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.<\/p>\n

Vice President JD Vance praised the governors for having to make tough decisions. When you\u2019re in his position, Vance said, \u201cnobody blames you when anything goes wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a glowing evening in the White House,\u201d Hutchinson, who once chaired the NGA, said in an interview.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

Stitt said that states should be empowered to issue workforce permits and warned that both parties are making false political assumptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople think \u2018OK, all the Democrats want open borders,\u2019\u201d he said, \u201cand \u2018all Republicans hate immigrants.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But Stitt noted that \u201crural Oklahoma Trump voters\u201d have privately approached him, saying they couldn\u2019t operate their businesses without people who were trying to obtain work authorization. <\/p>\n

For all the turmoil surrounding this week\u2019s meeting, Moore said the conference was a success. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere 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,\u201d he said. \u201cTo all the people who tried to make that happen, you failed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The annual dinner with governors at the White House is typically a chance for leaders…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,222518,3832,2302,3505,12,109,793,28962,962,10476,6009,78204,2001,9111,3,9600,111,880,8638,3438,21,19,22,20,25,24,800,8630],"class_list":{"0":"post-483016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-asa-hutchinson","10":"tag-colorado","11":"tag-courts","12":"tag-district-of-columbia","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-economic-policy","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-gina-raimondo","17":"tag-government-policy","18":"tag-jared-polis","19":"tag-jd-vance","20":"tag-kevin-stitt","21":"tag-massachusetts","22":"tag-maura-healey","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-oklahoma","25":"tag-politics","26":"tag-rhode-island","27":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","28":"tag-u-s-republican-party","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-united-states-of-america","31":"tag-unitedstates","32":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","33":"tag-us","34":"tag-usa","35":"tag-washington-news","36":"tag-wes-moore"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}