After President Donald Trump said two Democratic governors were not welcome at the White House during the annual governors’ meeting in the nation’s capital, National Governors Association chair Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican from Oklahoma, sat down with one of the disinvited governors, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, at an event Wednesday evening.
Moore and Stitt were joined by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox at an “America 250 Forum,” sponsored by Pew Charitable Trusts and Disagree Better.
Stitt addressed the controversy up front, saying Trump was initially confused and said the governors were not invited to a dinner at the White House, but the event in question was actually a business meeting meant to be held Friday morning.
At first Trump said he was only going to include Republican governors for the gathering, but in a post online last week, Trump said invitations went to “ALL governors” except Moore and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis because he didn’t feel they were “worthy of being there.”
The NGA canceled the White House business meeting as of Feb. 11, since all governors were not invited.
Stitt said Trump could invite whomever he wanted to the dinner, which will still take place, but as many as 18 governors have said they won’t attend in solidarity with the two who were disinvited.
Stitt and Cox did not say Wednesday if they would attend the White House dinner, although Stitt has come under fire by Trump in recent social media posts.
Stitt, and the other two governors, focused on unity and civility at Wednesday night’s event.
“So, the NGA is bigger than one meeting. It’s bigger than one dinner at the White House,” Stitt said.
He later added, “The NGA stands together with all governors, and so we’re not going to facilitate something that doesn’t include everybody.”
Moore said Wednesday that it was an “unfortunate turn of circumstances” because governors for decades have been invited no matter who was in control of the White House. He argued that it’s “just amongst many other traditions” broken by the Trump administration.
The Maryland governor said regardless of whether he receives an invitation to the gathering, the governors intend to have a very productive and collaborative few days in Washington.
“We’re going to debate our ideas, we’re going to coordinate, we’re going to find places where we’re seeing best practices all across the country, we’re going to model them and adopt them and steal them and bring them for our states,” Moore said. “And there is no person, nor one office, nor one administration that is going to disrupt that because governors are just built different.”
Stitt said the annual gathering and events like Wednesday evening’s discussion are important because Americans like to see Republican and Democratic leaders from different states getting along. Those elected officials likely agree on about “80% of the things, and we can have the things we disagree on,” he said.
Cox agreed about the role of the NGA, saying “Whatever happens this weekend, this institution is bigger than the three of us. It’s bigger than any one person and our job is to make sure that it outlives us and that the next generation gets these institutions.”
In addition to discussing the current disagreement with the president, the three governors called on the business and government leaders in attendance to find ways to change the incentives for service and community-level organizing in order to improve conditions in the country.
Healing America’s divide: What Stitt, Cox and Moore had to say
Since Cox founded Disagree Better while serving as chair of the NGA in 2023, his organization, now a nonprofit, has grown and invited more Americans to ask how they can better handle political conflict and conversation.
The discussion Wednesday, moderated by NPR’s “Morning Edition” host Steve Inskeep, examined several topics, including the role of service in rebuilding American kindness, the bipartisan relationships governors have built through the NGA, the Founding Fathers’ vision for a divided nation and how the country can heal.
Stitt noted that the reason he and the other governors do events aligned with Disagree Better’s mission is because they believe it’s important for Americans to see their elected leaders getting along and discussing issues.
“When you actually meet someone, you break bread with them, you get to know their families, you know that they care about their states, they care about these issues,” he said. “We’re Americans first and I just think that’s so, so important.”
Stitt noted that through the NGA, he’s been able to connect with Democratic governors from the Northeast and collaborate on projects together that have improved both of their states. Platforms like the Disagree Better event give him an opportunity to show the “behind the scenes” work, he said.
The Oklahoma governor observed that current American political leaders have swung back and forth on policies like a pendulum, bringing Americans with them. Former President Barack Obama killed a previously passed Republican initiative, Trump brought it back during his first term, just for former President Joe Biden to trash it and for Trump to bring it back again during his second term, he said.
“Oklahoma doesn’t want to be California, right? California doesn’t want to be Oklahoma … and that’s okay, we understand that,” Stitt said. “I think when we try to do a one size fits all … that’s a big problem.”
Moore highlighted the importance of checks and balances and how the Founding Fathers laid out the separation of powers both within the federal government but also between the federal and state level.
“I think that we should not have to rely on individual restraint. We should not have to rely on a person’s strength being their own morality,” Moore said. “That’s why we actually have systems that should be supported, that should be protected and should also be respected.”
Cox agreed. He said the founders of this country predicted that America would become divided and leaders at the top would “try to act like kings” no matter what political party they come from.
“We had a king. We decided we didn’t like that. The founders understood that all human beings are flawed … and that power corrupts,” he said. “So they divided government as much as they could … that was brilliant of them.”
“So, we as governors … have to continue to push back on the federal government. The federal government is too powerful, never meant to be that way,” Cox later added. “It’s okay that we’re different. It’s okay. We don’t all have to be the same.”
Stitt noted that about 80% of the country believe that the United States is the greatest country in the world, but at the same time about 70% of people say that the country is as divided as it’s ever been.
“So why is that? How can we be the greatest country in the world, and yet be as divided as ever?” he asked. “So it’s guys like Wes Moore and (Spencer) Cox that can lead us and can talk about these things and can bring us together.”
Civility at the local level
Yet, in a divided nation where political discourse has become heated and sometimes impossible, the governors argued that healing will likely come at the local level.
Moore noted that Maryland was the first in the nation to implement a state-wide service initiative where state dollars fund students for a year of service in any passion area after they graduate from high school. The paid, 9-month program allows young adults to provide meaningful service to their community, make connections with like-minded individuals and learn about the personal impact of giving back.
“I think that what this country needs most right now is we need to get to know each other. People are just way too comfortable being in their silos and their buckets and on their sides,” Moore said, noting that the service program allows young people to “get to know each other again.”
Cox joked that Utah proudly leads the nation in service, but “somehow Wes beat us to that, we’re playing catch up.”
Cox noted that in recent decades, America has lost its community-level institutions and the country has become isolated from connection and humanity, furthering the political divisiveness and toxicity seen in the current age.
“We’re lonelier than we’ve ever been and so I always worry about this. If we don’t have healthy tribes, these institutions that we’ve lost because we thought maybe we didn’t need them today … we have to get back to building those again and that happens at the community level, it doesn’t happen at the national level.”
Cox said that he used to tell graduating students that they could go change the world, when in reality, he should have said something else.
“If you tell kids, don’t change the world, change your neighborhood, go serve and give back, the irony of all of that is that that’s actually how you do change the world,” he said. “That’s the only way we’re gonna change this country is rebuilding those local institutions where we get to know each other personally.”
Cox highlighted the idea behind Disagree Better, noting that the three governors were on the stage Wednesday because they believe that it’s for the good of the country. They know that negative and divisive politics are attention-grabbing and flashy, but the more people who see that the good side of political conversation can also be attention-grabbing, the better.
“Look, this room is full of very important people who run organizations, businesses, nonprofits. I want you to be thinking about what you can do in your role to change the incentive structure in our country,” he said, later adding, “We’re losing virtue in our country, which means this experiment in self-government can’t work unless we change the incentives. We have to be civically minded again.”
“We just have to be good people,” Cox continued. “If America ceases to be good, she ceases to be great.”