Donald Trump

The invitations were supposed to be simple: a weekend in Washington, a business meeting at the White House, and a black-tie dinner where partisan warfare is usually checked at the door. Instead, the annual gathering of America's governors has turned into a small, chaotic parable about how Donald Trump does politics — with public snubs, online tirades, and a gaping question over who is 'worthy' to be in the room.

By tradition, the National Governors Association (NGA) brings leaders from all 50 states and five territories to Washington every February. They talk policy, compare notes, and, crucially, cross the aisle. A White House meeting with the president and a glamorous governors' dinner have long been the centrepieces of the weekend.

This year, that custom has been thrown into doubt by a muddle of decisions, reversals and social media blasts that left even seasoned political staff asking a basic question: who is actually invited?

Trump, Governors And A Weekend That Went Sideways

The trouble began on Monday, when Oklahoma's Republican governor, Kevin Stitt — who currently chairs the NGA — told his fellow governors that the White House intended to restrict the 20 February business meeting to Republicans only.

'NGA staff was informed that the White House intends to limit invitations to the annual business meeting, scheduled for February 20, to Republican governors only,' Stitt wrote in a letter. Because the association represents 'all 55 governors', he added, the NGA would no longer help facilitate the event and would strike it from its official programme.

It was an unusually firm pushback from a Republican ally. 'We cannot allow one divisive action to achieve its goal of dividing us,' Stitt warned, sounding more like a civics textbook than a MAGA-era politician. At that point, he noted, no invitations had yet gone out.

That changed quickly. According to a person familiar with the planning, Republican governors received their invites later that same day.

By Wednesday, after a call with Trump, Stitt appeared to claim victory. In a second letter, sent at 2pm Eastern, he told governors that the president had backed off the idea of excluding Democrats from the meeting, chalking the earlier plan up to a 'misunderstanding in scheduling'.

Trump, Stitt said, had been 'very clear' that this was an NGA event and that he was looking forward to hearing from governors 'across the country'. About half an hour later, Democratic governors finally received their invitations to the Friday business meeting.

So far, so messy but salvageable. The business session seemed back on a bipartisan footing. The separate 21 February black-tie dinner at the White House was another matter.

'Not Worthy' To Attend: Trump's Public Broadside

Democrats had been told earlier that all but two of their governors — Maryland's Wes Moore and Colorado's Jared Polis — were invited to the dinner. That carve‑out was already provocative. Then Trump went online.

Posting on his social media platform on Wednesday afternoon, the president attacked Stitt's original letter and, in the process, appeared to blur the lines between the business meeting and the dinner.

The NGA chair, Trump wrote, had 'incorrectly stated my position on the very exclusive Governors Annual Dinner and Meeting at the White House'. Quoting the letter's line about limiting the 'annual business meeting' to Republican governors, Trump snapped back: 'That is false! The invitations were sent to ALL Governors, other than two, who I feel are not worthy of being there.'

He named the two: Polis and Moore. In reality, they had been invited to the business meeting — Moore's office confirmed his meeting invitation arrived on Wednesday afternoon — but not the dinner. Yet Trump's post mashed the events together and leaned into the exclusion as a personal judgment of worth.

He also used the moment to lash out at a string of Democratic governors and to brand Stitt a 'RINO' — a 'Republican in name only' — for how he had handled the situation. If this was meant to clarify matters, it did the opposite.

'Following that invitation, the president made his derogatory and disrespectful Truth Social post, and I believe that has led to a lack of clarity amongst everyone involved,' one person involved in the NGA planning told The Hill.

By Thursday morning, Trump doubled down again, once more calling Stitt a 'RINO' and dangling the prospect of backing a primary challenger. This time, he focused only on the dinner, insisting he had invited 'not happily, almost all Democrat Governors' and accusing Stitt of seeking 'cheap publicity'.

'Anyway, I'll see whoever shows up at the White House, the fewer the better!' he signed off — a line that neatly captures his governing style: attendance as a loyalty test, bipartisanship as an optional extra.

A Bipartisan Tradition Under Strain

The NGA and the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) are now left to decide whether to play along.

An NGA spokesperson said the organisation 'is not currently facilitating the dinner unless all governors are invited' and has had no update from the White House on that point. Stitt, for his part, has stuck to a narrow line, saying only that he is 'glad the White House changed course and decided to invite all the governors to the Feb. 20 business meeting'. He has not publicly defended Moore or Polis, nor responded to Trump's insults.

Democrats have been blunter. The DGA initially vowed to boycott any White House NGA event that excluded even one governor, calling the meetings 'productive and bipartisan opportunities for collaboration'. As of Thursday, the group had not said whether Democratic governors would now attend the business meeting, given that all have been invited to that session — if not all to the dinner.

This is not the kind of story that normally breaks out of the US political pages. Governors' conferences are supposed to be boring, by design. That's the point: a brief pocket of normality where state leaders can speak as peers rather than proxies in an endless culture war.

What this episode lays bare is how fragile those rituals become when the person in the White House openly relishes selective humiliation — deciding, as Trump put it, who is 'not worthy' of crossing his threshold.

Whether Democratic governors swallow the insult and show up anyway, or stay away and risk deepening the partisan freeze, the damage is already done. A weekend meant to showcase cooperation has been turned into yet another loyalty drama, with the president of the United States auditioning for maître d' and bouncer at the same time.

Originally published on IBTimes UK