“You better do it because you’re not going to get federal funding,” Trump told Gov. Janet Mills during an event with the National Governors Association captured by a press pool recording.
“We’re going to follow the law sir. We’ll see you in court,” replied Mills, who is attending the organization’s winter summit.
“Enjoy your life after governor, because I don’t think you’ll be an elected official afterwards,” Trump responded.
Before the exchange, Mills and other Maine officials said the state would not be intimidated by Trump after the president singled out Maine during a Thursday speech at the Republican Governors Association meeting.
“Anyone here from Maine?” the president asked the crowd. “They are still saying they want men to play in women’s sports and I cannot believe that they are doing that…so we’re not gonna give them any federal funding until they clean that up.”
The executive order, which the president signed on Feb. 5 as part of the administration’s broader anti-trans agenda, rescinds federal funds from “educational programs” if schools fail to adhere to the ban.
The administration is asking federal agencies to interpret Title IX — a federal civil rights law barring schools that receive federal funding from practicing sex-based discrimination — in a way that complies with the order.
In a statement shared early Friday, Mills said “the State of Maine will not be intimidated by the president’s threats.”
“If the president attempts to unilaterally deprive Maine school children of the benefit of federal funding, my administration and the attorney general will take all appropriate and necessary legal action to restore that funding and the academic opportunity it provides,” Mills said.
Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey said any attempt by the president to cut federal funding to Maine over the issue “would be illegal and in direct violation of federal court orders.”
“Fortunately,” Frey wrote in a statement, “the rule of law still applies in this country, and I will do everything in my power to defend Maine’s laws and block efforts by the president to bully and threaten us.”
He added, “It is disturbing that President Trump would use children as pawns in advancing his political agenda"...
The Maine Principals Association’s transgender participation policy was in effect from 2013 to 2021, when the Maine Human Rights Act was amended to include gender identity as a protected class. As the Bangor Daily News pointed out, in 2023, the organization testified that during the time their policy was in place, they heard from “56 transgender students wishing to participate in high school athletics with four being transgender girls.”
Later on Friday, the USA Department of Education (still in existence) notified its counterpart in Maine that it had been directed to investigate the state because of its policy. Then in response to the controversy, Governor Mills identified the both the immediate issue in play when she noted
No President – Republican or Democrat – can withhold Federal funding authorized and appropriated by Congress and paid for by Maine taxpayers in an attempt to coerce someone into compliance with his will. It is a violation of our Constitution and of our laws, which I took an oath to uphold.
Though as a Democratic politician she cannot directly acknowledge it, Mills understands that the immediate issue is a narrow one: "this is not just about who can compete on the athletic field." Recognizing the larger issue, she continued
Maine may be one of the first states to undergo an investigation by his Administration, but we won’t be the last. Today, the President of the United States has targeted one particular group on one particular issue which Maine law has addressed. But you must ask yourself: who and what will he target next, and what will he do? Will it be you? Will it be because of your race or your religion? Will it be because you look different or think differently? Where does it end?
This harkens back to a voice from history, Reverend Martin Niemoller, a German theologian and Lutheran minister and early critic of Adolf Hitler, who retrospectively- and probably, presciently- wrote in 1946:
First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.
First they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.. Then they came
Then they came for me- and there was no one left to speak for me.
Less prophetic, but similarly eloquently, the sanguine Sammy Johns in 1984 (1984? Really?) wrote America, about America, for Waylon Jennings, who sang
Some have said down through history
If you last, it's a mystery
But I guess they don't know what they're talking about.
That was in 1984. Extended forty-one years, it has been a good run. However, it turns out they did know what they were talking about because in the age of Trump-Musk, it's going to take many more people like Janet Mills for Martin Niemoller not to be proven prophetic.
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