Whitmer stands by working with Trump

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s private meeting Tuesday with President Donald Trump went far more smoothly than an Oval Office encounter a year ago, when she fled after hiding her face behind a folder.

In an interview with Semafor’s Ben Smith Wednesday, Whitmer said despite criticism from the left, her work with the president has paid off on the problem of Asian carp in the Great Lakes, disaster funding, and the future of the Selfridge Air National Guard Base.

As Democratic governors in big blue states jockey to become chief Trump antagonist, Whitmer shows no sign of leaving her pragmatic lane.

“I’m going to do what I think the right thing to do is for Michigan, and the people of Michigan have rewarded me for that,” she said, pointing to her 60% approval rating.

Whitmer, speaking at the Blackrock Infrastructure Summit, also criticized the hardline approach to data centers taken by some progressives. “Data centers are going to get built,” she said. “The question is, are they going to get built right?” When asked if the next president should repeal Trump’s tariffs she walked a fine line, saying, “I think that the next president should stop the tariff chaos.”

Whitmer said she hasn’t made a decision about whether to run for president, but she has joked about it with her dad. “My father once said to me, ‘You know, you’d have to be a sociopath to run for president.’ And then about two years ago, he said, ‘You might need to think about running for president.’ And I said, ‘Are you calling me a sociopath, Dad’?”

Regardless of whether she runs, Whitmer would like to stay in public service. “I just know that we’re going to have a lot of work to do as a nation and we need great people and I like to think of it as an Avengers-style approach,” she said.

As far as her meeting a year ago at the White House, Whitmer acknowledged it was embarrassing, at least in the moment. “I thought I was having a one-on-one with the president,” Whitmer recalled, as the White House team walked her into a press gaggle. “At one point, I just held up the folder because I just didn’t want to be there. And it was on the front of The New York Times, and I took a lot of crap for it, from the left.”

Whitmer said that in the end Michigan voters didn’t agree with her critics in the media. She also joked that she wondered why Mayor Zohran Mamdani was called “smart” by the chattering class for visiting Trump at the White House, though she stopped short of saying whether she believes there’s a double standard for female politicians.

In the near term, she said Democrats should stay focused on “affordability,” even if it’s not the word to use.

“I do think as we go into this midterm election, staying focused on what’s possible, what we can do to help people get ahead, keep more money in their pocket, take care of their families,” she said. “That’s where elections are decided. James Carville said, ‘It’s about the economy, stupid,’ right? That will always be the truth.”