Politics

Democratic governors pledge to boycott White House events after a Trump snub

Published

5 months ago

February 10, 2026

Most of the nation’s Democratic governors pledged to not attend events hosted by the White House later this month, after President Donald Trump snubbed some state executives amid his ongoing feud with blue states.

Blue Light News reported last week that the White House decided to invite only Republicans to a meeting between the president and governors that was timed to the National Governors Association’s annual gathering — a break from its bipartisan past. And while a dinner celebrating governors of both parties was still planned, some Democrats — including Wes Moore of Maryland and Jared Polis of Colorado — confirmed they did not receive an invitation.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that while the White House is the people’s house, “it’s also the president’s home, and so he can invite whomever he wants to dinners and events here at the White House.”

Trump’s decision not to invite Moore — the association’s vice chair — and Polis sparked backlash from Democrats, with 18 sitting governors announcing that they would boycott the dinner.

“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 Democratic governors wrote in a joint statement Tuesday. “Democratic governors remain united and will never stop fighting to protect and make life better for people in our states.”

Moore also suggested Sunday that his race may have played a role in the White House’s decision not to invite him to the event.

“It’s not lost on me that I’m the only Black governor in this country, and I find that to be particularly painful, considering the fact that the president is trying to exclude me from an organization that not only my peers have asked me to help to lead, but then also a place where I know I belong in,” he said in an interview with BLN’s “State of the Union.”

Blue Light News previously reported that the NGA decided not to sponsor the planned meeting between Trump and the governors once it became clear only Republicans would be invited, with the organization writing in an email to people involved in planning that “no NGA resources will be used to support transportation for this activity.”

Brandon Tatum, the CEO of the NGA, said in a statement last week that the group was “disappointed in the administration’s decision to make it a partisan occasion this year.”

At last year’s annual meeting between Trump and the governors, the president got into an argument with Maine Gov. Janet Mills over his administration’s moves to restrict transgender athletes’ participation in school sports, with Trump ultimately threatening to pull funding and Mills promising to sue.

The NGA has undergone considerable turmoil in the last year, with Democratic governors raising alarm about the association’s unwillingness to more vocally criticize the Trump administration.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker threatened to withdraw from the group over Trump’s decision to deploy other states’ National Guard troops to their states.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, the group’s Republican chair, also criticized the administration’s National Guard deployments, telling The New York Times in an October interview that he worried the president was undermining states’ rights.

In a letter sent Monday by Stitt to other governors and obtained by The Associated Press, he urged members to unite together, writing “the solution is not to respond in kind, but to rise above and to remain focused on our shared duty to the people we serve.”

The New York Times also first reported last week that some Democratic governors weren’t invited to the dinner.

“The President has the discretion to invite whomever he wants to the White House, and he welcomes all those who received an invitation to come, and if they don’t want to, that’s their loss,” Leavitt said of the dinner on Tuesday.

Politics

Norway is pillaging hearts and minds

Published

3 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Norway’s fans became famous around New York City for plopping down wherever they are and pretending to row like Vikings — in Times Square, in rain-drenched parking lots before matches and inside MetLife Stadium so vigorously the stadium swayed. Today they bring the “Viking row” to Boston for Norway’s heavyweight clash with France.

For Norwegians, embracing ancestors known above all for rapacious pillaging is complicated stuff, but the country’s leaders are hoping to send some modern messages about their country, too. Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus’ first visit abroad without their parents was to cheer on Norway’s first men’s World Cup appearance in 28 years.

A former member of parliament and foreign minister, Ambassador Anniken Huitfeldt was posted to Washington in 2024, just in time for the election of President Donald Trump. At a New York party for Norwegian fans, she was treated like a celebrity.

When I met her in the crowd, another journalist from back home stopped to say hello. Some guys asked to be in a photo with her. After the interview was over and I was in the middle of a tailgate outside, a random Norwegian volunteered to help me understand some of the chants – and it turns out he said he knew her, too.

This interview was conducted in English, and Huitfeldt’s remarks have been edited for length and clarity.

This seems like an amazing exercise of soft power. The Viking army — you see Norwegians in the subway, on the escalators.

I think it’s been very important to how we look upon ourselves. Because the Viking history has always been important for Norwegians, but we never brag about it in a way. And we haven’t focused that much about it.

But here, it has really made us proud. And I think a lot of people were a little bit embarrassed at the beginning. But when they saw how well it was received here in the U.S., we have really taken part in it. So now we are super happy. I mean, everybody’s joining.

How are you using it for your job, beyond just sort of introducing Norway to Americans and North Americans? Is it helping you do diplomacy?

We put a lot of effort in social media. We have given interviews before to POLITICO about our chef and diplomacy, and we’ve got so much attention. But the video where we are rowing, the staff at the embassy, has been spread to 3 million people. [It had more than 4 million views by Wednesday.]

Hard pivot to foreign policy: Are you looking for anything in particular out of the NATO meeting this week with the president? Is there something Norway would like to see?

I think it’s very important to focus on how European countries over the years have really stepped up. And now it’s a pretty good deal for the U.S., I think, the whole NATO package. Because we spend more on defense than the U.S. does when it comes to GDP, and at the same time we purchase very much of the weapons from the U.S. that we send to Ukraine.

And not to forget how we are taking care of American security up in the high north. I mean all those nuclear weapons on the Kola Peninsula — the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world — those weapons are not directed at Oslo, but at the United States. So we are also taking care of American homeland security up in the high north. So it’s a pretty good package for the American people, the cooperation that we have in NATO.

How has the Trump administration’s positioning towards the Arctic, towards Greenland, towards other things, changed your job, or what you expected your job to be?

Well, it has been challenging, especially when it comes to Greenland, where we have been very united with the other European countries. I think we have been very coordinated in how we talk about this, and for us it’s extremely important that we don’t change the geography and borders up in the high north.

Politics

Wes Moore lays out his vision for America

Published

7 hours ago

June 26, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore is on an Independence Day collision course with President Donald Trump.

Moore is planning to deliver a sweeping speech on patriotism on July Fourth from the Maryland State House in Annapolis — with the aim of counterprogramming what Trump promised would be the “most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all, a ‘TRIBUTE TO AMERICA.’”

In an interview with Blue Light News, Moore said he thinks Trump is going to spend the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding talking about himself — but that America deserves something more.

“The president is incapable of meeting the moment,” Moore said.

In his split-screen remarks, called “The Work of Patriotism,” the former Army captain and Afghanistan veteran is expected to “make the case that Democrats cannot cede patriotism to Donald Trump — and that love of country is not about loyalty to one man, one party, or one political spectacle,” according to Ammar Moussa, Moore’s press secretary.

Moore will “draw a contrast between patriotism and nationalism, making the case that nationalism is about allegiance to a person or a movement, while patriotism is about allegiance to the country and the people who make it worth fighting for,” Moussa said.

“We are a nation of strength because we are a nation of sacrifice,” Moore will say, according to a draft of his remarks.

But Moore insisted he’s not trying to be a foil to the president.

“I’m trying to be a foil to darkness,” Moore said. “I think I’m trying to be a foil to fatalism. I think I’m trying to be a foil to self-serving ideologies. What I want people to know in all this is that I believe strongly that we need a future-facing vision for this nation.”

That’s exactly what someone who’s “not running” for president would say, right? Standard Maryland gubernatorial reelection fare.

The speech follows a pattern of growing visibility for Moore. He’s been on numerous podcasts and in new media. The day after his speech, he’s expected to appear on an episode of Jubilee’s “Surrounded,” a booking that’s becoming routine for prominent Democratic figures such as Pete Buttigieg, Texas Senate candidate James Talarico and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

On Saturday, Moore is heading to battleground Michigan, a potential early 2028 primary state, where he’ll stump for gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson in Detroit, Saginaw and Flint — all pivotal locales to win reelection in Maryland, of course.

Moore has said he’s “laser-focused” on his 2026 reelection campaign. Or, as he explained in an interview with POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin: “I’m hungry, but I’m not thirsty.”

The Maryland governor also had his own thoughts about what the progressive victories in New York’s primaries mean, and how that insurgent energy could be harnessed by 2028 Democrats.

“I think harnessing the energy means driving for the results that people are aspiring to,” Moore said, citing primary wins in his own backyard too: “I created an entire slate, the Leave No One Behind slate in Maryland that was wildly successful, and if you look at the candidates that I endorsed and supported, you can’t find an ideological thread in them. We endorsed the progressive legislator from Montgomery County, and we supported the prosecutor in Baltimore County.”

In fact, Moore endorsed some 200 candidates across the state, and his advisers say 93 percent have either won or are in the lead.

“What connects them is a belief that the status quo has got to be disrupted,” Moore said.

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