At least for now, Pennsylvania's Josh Shapiro and other governors will be no-shows for an annual event this month, one that traditionally has been a bipartisan gathering of governors at the White House. Just last year, Shapiro said the gathering helped break an impasse over federal funding earmarked for the state.
But by Wednesday of this year, about the only bipartisan event may be the consternation over Trump's refusal to invite two Democratic governors: Wes Moore of Maryland and Jared Polis of Colorado.
As of Tuesday, Shapiro and 17 other Democratic state leaders said they would not attend the National Governors Association event scheduled for Feb. 19 - 21. The Democratic Governors Association said its members would boycott the event unless all their members were invited, and Shapiro's office confirmed Tuesday that he supported a statement from the group.
"If the reports are true that not all governors are invited to these events, which have historically been productive and bipartisan opportunities for collaboration, we will not be attending the White House dinner this year," the statement said. "Democratic governors remain united and will never stop fighting to protect and make life better for people in our states."
By Wednesday, it appeared that some Republicans were having misgivings as well, as the Associated Press reported. Republican governors in the group would no longer consider the meeting a formal gathering of the organization.
"Because NGA's mission is to represent all 55 governors, the Association is no longer serving as the facilitator for that event, and it is no longer included in our official program," Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, who chairs the group, wrote in a message obtained by the AP. (The uninvited Moore of Maryland is vice-chair.)
Stitt then reportedly told one media outlet that Trump had reversed course, and all governors would be invited. That claim quickly fell apart after Trump posted a rebuttal on social media, in which he said Polis was not invited because he refused to release Tina Peters, a former elections official who was convicted of felonies for seeking to tamper with voting equipment. Trump has sought to pardon her, but a president's pardon power does not cover state crimes like those Peters was convicted of committing.
Trump also accused Moore of exaggerating his military service in a two-decade old application, and of having "allowed Baltimore to continue to be a Crime Disaster." (Crime rates in Baltimore last year actually saw significant declines.)
The White House previously responded to questions from WESA by pointing to remarks made Tuesday from press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
"The president has the discretion to invite whomever he wants to the White House," Leavitt told reporters. "And if they don't want to, that's their loss."
Aside from the political theater, a chance to meet with White House officials can have an impact. Last year Shapiro said the meeting proved successful, and that conversations with officials helped free up money the Trump Administration had frozen, even though the federal government had previously committed it for green energy and environmental remediation funds.
It's unclear if the governors' White House meeting would've given Shapiro a similar opportunity this time, or whether he would have had any influence on decisions made by the Trump administration this year.
The Pennsylvania Democrat has sued Trump more than two dozen times, and the confusion over the governors' meeting comes as state and local officials reckon with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's recent move to purchase two large Pennsylvania facilities for immigration detention and processing.
Speaking in Northeastern Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Shapiro said state and local officials were "kept in the dark" on the acquisitions.
"We were not informed beforehand, just like the local community," Shapiro told reporters. "I do not want these facilities here. They do not belong in Berks or Schuylkill County. They undermine the economic growth that we're seeing across this commonwealth. I think they compromise people's safety and I think there are very, very serious questions as to whether our infrastructure can even handle this."
Either way, Shapiro said the state has little control on the matter — and it seems he won't get a chance to speak with the administration about it in person next week.
The federal government has "extraordinary power to be able to locate these places against the will of a local community and against the will of the state," he said. But he added, "We've been working very hard behind the scenes to see what we can do."
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