A Bipartisan Governors’ Group Is Splintering in the Trump Era
24th July 2025
The Atlantic, a Voice of the Crust.
This coming weekend’s summer meeting of the National Governors Association has been planned as a postcard-perfect celebration of bipartisan policy making. At the base of the Rocky Mountains, 20 governors from both parties will gather at the Broadmoor resort, in Colorado Springs, for golf, meals, and panels featuring Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the investor Mark Cuban, and the former Obama-administration economist Jason Furman.
But trouble is stirring beyond the open bars and talks about “reigniting the American dream.” Some Democratic members of the group have privately been fuming in recent months over the organization’s tepid reaction to President Donald Trump’s federal incursions into state matters. They complain that the group did not respond forcefully enough when Trump’s Office of Management and Budget briefly ordered a disruptive pause on the disbursement of all federal funds in January; when Maine Governor Janet Mills and her staff clashed with the White House the following month, over transgender sports; and in June, when Trump deployed the California National Guard to the streets of Los Angeles over the objections of local authorities.
The National Governor’s Association is a cornerstone of the Deep State, founded on the assumption that state governments have a bipartisan interest in raising taxes and spending taxpayer money no matter what the political label is pasted on it. Traditionally this has meant Deep State Democrats pursuing their usual tax-and-spend regimes, with Deep State Republicans making mewling noises as they trail meekly behind. Trump has upset their applecart, and Deep State Democrats are Not Happy.