THE NEW YORK TIMES – Something happened at the White House Friday afternoon that almost never happens these days. Somebody defied President Trump. Right to his face.
He was about an hour into a meeting with a bipartisan group of governors when he suddenly remembered that the leaders of Maine had been resisting an executive order he signed banning transgender athletes from women’s sports.
TRUMP: “The NCAA has complied immediately, by the way. That’s good, but I understand Maine — is Maine here? The governor of Maine.”
MAINE GOVERNOR JANET MILLS: “Yeah, I’m here.”
TRUMP: “Are you not going to comply with it?”
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MILLS: “I’m complying with state and federal laws.”
TRUMP: “Well, we are the federal law. Well, you better do it. You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t. And by the way, your population, even though it’s somewhat liberal — although I did very well there — your population doesn’t want men playing in women’s sports. So you better you better comply because otherwise you’re not getting any federal funding.”
MILLS: “See you in court.”
TRUMP: “Every state — good, I’ll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be a real easy one.”
It was a fleeting back and forth, but Ms. Mills’s moment of defiance came at a time when Democrats have struggled to find any coherent or effective way to stand up to this president.
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One month into his second term, Mr. Trump has called himself a king, with the White House posting a depiction of the president wearing a crown, and the Republican leaders of Congress have happily ceded their power to him.
The standoff between the administration and Maine’s leaders continued to escalate Friday.
Shortly after Ms. Mills’s exchange with the president, the U.S. Department of Education sent a letter to the state’s education commissioner …