Colorado’s Jared Polis embraces Trump’s national governors’ White House dinner snub: a ‘badge of honor’

The winter meeting of the National Governors Association is usually a refuge from the louder dramas of Washington, D.C.: a few days of policy panels, side conversations about housing and health care, and the quiet choreography of federalism. This year, it opened instead with a reminder of how difficult it has become to keep even the rituals of governance free from the pull of spectacle in the second Trump administration.

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On Thursday, the first day of the gathering, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who is gay and the immediate past chair of the NGA, addressed a controversy that has turned a normally ceremonial White House meeting and dinner into a political fault line. President Donald Trump moved to exclude Polis and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, the NGA’s vice chair and chair-elect, from the traditional events tied to the group’s session, breaking with decades of bipartisan custom and prompting a wave of protests from Democratic governors.

Moore is the only Black person currently serving as a U.S. governor.

Appearing on MS NOW’s Morning Joe, Polis described his exclusion as a “badge of honor” and called the White House’s handling of the invitations as “utter chaos,” likening the episode to “one of those fifth-grade birthday parties” where everyone is left guessing who is in and who is out.

“This is really a blow against the governors as a whole when they try to exclude certain governors,” Polis said, arguing that the move reduced a collective institution to a stage for political signaling.

The National Governors Association represents 55 governors: the leaders of the 50 U.S. states and five U.S. territories. Among the states, the partisan balance is nearly even, with 26 Republicans and 24 Democrats, a narrow divide that has long made the organization one of the few national political bodies where neither party can dominate and where cooperation is often a practical necessity.

The dispute escalated after the White House signaled it would limit invitations to the association’s annual business meeting to Republicans. In a letter obtained by Time earlier this week, NGA chair Kevin Stitt, the Republican governor of Oklahoma, said that because the White House intended to exclude some governors, the association would no longer facilitate the meeting “because NGA’s mission is to represent all 55 governors.”

Trump pushed back, accusing Stitt of spreading “false” information and insisting that invitations had gone to all governors except Polis and Moore, whom he said were “not worthy of being there.” He derided Stitt as a “RINO,” or Republican in name only, and later accused him of seeking “cheap publicity.”

The White House’s dispute with Polis, however, is pointedly personal. Trump has publicly attacked him over the case of Tina Peters, the former Mesa County, Colorado, clerk and MAGA faithful, convicted on multiple felony counts for allowing unauthorized access to election equipment after the 2020 election and sentenced to a lengthy prison term. Peters, now in her 70s, has become a symbol on the right of what Trump and his allies portray as political persecution.

In recent social media posts, Trump called Polis a “scumbag” and urged him to intervene, even though the conviction was obtained under state law and any relief would have to come through Colorado’s clemency process. Colorado Public Radio reports that Polis has recently said the nine-year sentence was “harsh” and that he would consider any clemency request through the normal channels, but he has not acted to shorten it.

Moore, for his part, has also been a frequent target of Trump’s criticism over high-profile infrastructure and environmental challenges in Maryland. He has responded by trying to drain the moment of its personal sting, saying publicly that his worth is measured by the people of his state, not by a presidential guest list.

At least 18 Democratic governors said they would boycott the White House dinner in solidarity, and the NGA itself said it would not facilitate a meeting that excludes some of its own members. In Trump’s second term, governors of both parties have found themselves navigating disputes over federal funding, executive authority, and the boundaries of presidential power.

“There’s no Republican or Democratic way to pave roads, to improve school performance, to improve health care,” Polis said. “What the real story is is governors from across the country, Republican and Democrat, are talking about the issues that matter in our states.”

Polis added, “I’m excited [that] 41 of us from across the country are here, and I'm very much excited to roll up my sleeves and learn a lot from our other states.”