Maine’s Democrat Gov. Janet Mills is fundraising off the back of a recent headline-grabbing moment when she was humiliated by President Donald Trump for defying his executive order on transgender sports.
Maine has defied Trump’s order to ban male athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports.
During a meeting with governors at the White House last week, Trump singled out Mills during a press conference and blasted her for failing to comply with the demand.
In a career-sinking moment for Mills, Trump scanned the room looking for the Maine governor and called her out for defying his policy, as Slay News reported.
“Are you not going to comply with that?” Trump asked Mills.
“I’m complying with state and federal laws,” she responded.
“Well, we are the federal law,” Trump asserted.
“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 comply because, otherwise, you’re not getting any federal funding,” Trump continued.
“We’ll see you in court,” Mills responded.
“Good, I’ll see you in court,” Trump said.
“I look forward to that.
“That should be a real easy one.
“And enjoy your life after governor because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics,” Trump concluded.
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A Maine state representative confirmed that following the verbal skirmish on Friday, Mills began sending out mass fundraising texts to Maine residents.
The texts cited her viral altercation with Trump, which played out on national TV.
“On Friday at a bipartisan meeting of governors, Donald Trump threatened to deny Maine school children federal funding unless we fall in line with his personal demands,” Mills’ text campaign said.
“He even stated that he was ‘the law,’ never mind Congress or the states.
“I told him we’d see him in court.”
Mills went on to claim that Trump is now using his new power to “punish his enemies” after he campaigned on lowering prices for everyday Americans.
“I want to make one thing clear: Maine will not be intimidated by the president’s threats,” the campaign said.
“The work to push back against Trump and his agenda begins at the state level.
“Can you donate $10 to the Maine Democratic Party to make sure they have the resources to fight for our state?”
The same week Trump threatened to withhold funding from Maine for not complying with his executive order on women’s sports, a male claiming to be transgender “won” first place in the women’s pole vault at Maine’s Class B state indoor championship.
The athlete competed unsuccessfully as a man until June last year before he switched to the women’s team.
Maine’s primary governing body for high school athletics, the Maine Principal’s Association, confirmed that it did not intend to follow Trump’s executive order after it came out.
Rather, the association said they would defer to state law that makes it illegal to determine someone’s athletic eligibility on the basis of their gender identity.
Sarah Perry, a civil rights attorney who has extensive experience litigating Title IX issues, said that in addition to Trump’s executive order, Maine is also flouting directives from the Department of Education and previously established precedent from a slew of cases that challenged former President Joe Biden’s Title IX regulations allowing athletic eligibility to be determined by one’s preferred gender identity.
“Within six weeks [after Biden’s Title IX ruling] we had 11 federal lawsuits brought by 26 states, in addition to a handful of others – the Biden administration has lost every time,” Perry pointed out.
Perry added that besides the obvious risk of losing funding, these states also open themselves up to federal Title IX investigations, something she said could potentially force them to comply with Trump’s demands.
