President Trump opened the doors of the White House to governors of both parties this week for the annual National Governors Association conference — with two notable exceptions. Democratic Governors Wes Moore of Maryland and Jared Polis of Colorado remain excluded from the events, which include a formal meeting on Feb. 20 and a dinner the following evening.
The announcement landed on Wednesday after days of confusion over who, exactly, was invited. Trump made the terms plain in a Truth Social post that afternoon:
he invitations were sent to ALL Governors, other than two, who I feel are not worthy of being there.
He noted that he had "even invited" Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and California Gov. Gavin Newsom — hardly allies — to underscore the point. The exclusions weren't partisan carpet-bombing. They were targeted.
The road to Wednesday's clarity was anything but smooth. On Feb. 5, the NGA said it was informed by the White House that only Republican governors would be invited to the formal business meeting, CBS News reported. By the next day, the NGA announced it would not facilitate the meeting or place it on the group's official schedule.
NGA Chair Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma reiterated that position in a letter to governors on Monday, while also defending Moore as "an exceptional vice chair" of the association. Then came Tuesday's solidarity play: nearly every Democratic governor issued a joint statement refusing to attend any White House events unless Moore and Polis were included.
By Wednesday evening, Democratic governors began receiving invitations to the business meeting. Stitt messaged all 55 state and territory governors to confirm the broader welcome:
He was very clear in his communications with me that this is a National Governors Association's event, and he looks forward to hosting you and hearing from governors across the country. President Trump said this was always his intention, and we have addressed the misunderstanding in scheduling.
Trump didn't quite share that framing. His Truth Social post took a shot at Stitt directly:
So, as usual with him, Stitt got it WRONG! The Invitations were sent out to all other Governors, Democrat and Republican.
He also called Stitt a "RINO" — a label that carries extra sting given that Stitt backed Ron DeSantis during the 2024 Republican presidential primaries.
Trump offered specific reasons for each exclusion. For Moore, it was what Trump described as embellishing military medals on a 2006 White House fellowship application. Moore has called the matter an "honest mistake" and has since received a Bronze Star for his deployment to Afghanistan. Trump also called Moore "foul mouthed," though no specific incident was cited.
For Polis, the issue was Tina Peters — a former Colorado county election clerk currently serving a nine-year sentence on multiple state charges related to unauthorized access to voting machines. Trump has pushed Polis for months to grant Peters clemency. Polis hasn't budged, and now he's off the guest list.
Whether you view those as proportionate reasons or petty ones depends on your priors. But Trump has never pretended that access to the White House is an entitlement. It's an invitation — and invitations, by definition, can be withheld.
The joint statement from Democratic governors on Tuesday was meant to project unity. Refuse to attend unless everyone attends. Classic collective-action play.
It lasted about 24 hours.
Once invitations to the formal meeting started landing in Democratic inboxes Wednesday evening, the solidarity framework began to wobble. Moore himself still received an invite to the Feb. 20 meeting — a detail that sits awkwardly next to Trump's public declaration that Moore was excluded. It remains unclear whether Polis received the same.
Moore's public response leaned into the grievance:
another example of blatant disrespect and a snub to the spirit of bipartisan federal-state partnership
A spokesperson for Polis tried a more measured tone:
no matter what events Colorado is or isn't invited to, Governor Polis will continue to focus on working with his fellow governors and anyone who wants to help make people's lives better.
Here's the thing about the "bipartisan federal-state partnership" framing: it sounds noble in a press release, but it assumes that partnership is unconditional. It isn't. Last year's NGA meeting at the White House saw Maine's Democratic Gov. Janet Mills tell Trump to his face, "We'll see you in court," after he pressed her on transgender women in sports. She was still invited back this year. The bar for exclusion, it turns out, is higher than mere disagreement.
The Democratic outrage machine whirred to life on cue, framing the exclusions as an assault on norms. But the more interesting question is one the party's governors seem uninterested in exploring: why these two?
Trump invited Newsom. He invited Pritzker. He invited governors who have sued his administration, mocked him on cable news, and built their brands on opposing him. The two he excluded aren't the loudest critics or the most politically threatening. They're governors with specific, personal points of friction — a military records controversy and a clemency dispute.
That distinction matters. A blanket partisan exclusion would be one thing. This is something more granular. Democrats want to make it a story about authoritarianism. The facts make it a story about two men who earned individual attention for individual reasons.
Whether the Democratic governors who pledged solidarity actually skip the White House events will tell us everything we need to know about how seriously the party takes its own collective statements. The invitations are out. The dinner is on the calendar. And the political cost of an empty gesture — boycotting face time with the president over two colleagues' personal baggage — will fall on the governors who chose performance over pragmatism.
The White House doors are open. The question is who's willing to walk through them.
