Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is doubling down on her work with the Trump administration, defending her recent appearances with the president while emphasizing their disagreements.
Whitmer’s comments this week come as the governor — widely considered a possible contender to run for president in 2028 — has been slammed by critics in her own party on her outreach to the White House.
“It doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned any of my values. It doesn’t mean that I’m not gonna stand my ground,” Whitmer said in a Pod Save America interview released on Thursday. “This is one of those moments where as a public servant, you’re reminded your job is to put service above self, and that’s what it was all about.”
The Michigan Democrat toed the line on her conciliatory approach with President Donald Trump, who announced a new fighter mission at the Selfridge National Guard Base in Macomb County on Tuesday, which Whitmer said was a “BFD for my state” to POLITICO earlier this week.
Whitmer said on the podcast that she seized an opportunity during the National Governors Association Dinner, where she was seated next to Trump, to get the defense investment to her state. That led to a meeting with the president in the Oval Office in early April, where Whitmer said she unexpectedly found herself watching Trump sign executive orders targeting some of his key adversaries from the 2020 election.
“No one reported that I left the room to go talk to my staff person. I said, ‘we gotta get word out because the stuff that’s going on in there — I cannot be associated with that. I do not endorse that. I’m not here for that,’” Whitmer said. “But I had to stay and have my meeting after that was done.”
The governor backed her decision to meet with the president — and what she called the “infamous picture” of her covering her face with a folder in the Oval Office that was taken by a photographer for The New York Times.
“One of the things that I’ve learned is I’ve gotta put the people in Michigan first over my self-interest, over maybe what people assume are gonna be my political interests,” Whitmer added.
The controversy over Whitmer’s working relationship with Trump raised questions on which direction the Democratic resistance should take going into the midterms and the next presidential election. Whitmer’s approach is at odds with other Democrats even from her own state, with Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel posting online that “appeasement is not workable strategy with a fascist” a day after Whitmer appeared in the Oval Office. (The Nessel post does not mention Whitmer by name.)
Whitmer appeared at Trump’s press conference at Selfridge this week, where she said she was “damn happy” to be there. And Selfridge wasn’t her only victory this week, as the Trump administration eased tariffs on automakers — a move Whitmer had been lobbying the White House for.
The governor has also aligned herself with one of her party’s rallying cries under Trump’s second term. She said Democrats should approach Trump prepared to fight over what she and others described as a brewing constitutional crisis.
“The thought that we’ve got an administration that is just blatantly violating court orders should, I think, scare everybody,” Whitmer said on the podcast.
When asked if she had talked with the president about Trump’s targeting of diversity policies and freezing federal funding, Whitmer said she had not had a conversation about it but that she is “not afraid to do that.”
It’s still unclear what Whitmer’s next political move will be, being term limited next year and having already stated she’s not considering a Senate bid.
Whitmer said she doesn’t think appealing to the Trump administration will hurt her in Michigan, the purple midwestern state that Trump won in the 2024 presidential election.
“It means showing up at the Oval Office and maybe having people, pundits take shots at me for being there,” Whitmer said. “They don’t care whether or not I held a folder in a picture, they don’t care. They care if they’re gonna have a job.”
Read the full article here
