February 09, 2026 11:58 AM UTC

Is Trump's Snubbing Now a Badge of Honor?

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the New York Times’ Tyler Pager reports and the Denver Post picked up over the weekend, President Donald Trump’s campaign of retaliation against Colorado in matters both large and petty rages on, this time decidedly in the latter category:

President Trump is hosting an annual meeting of governors at the White House this month, but is doing something different this year. He is not inviting Democrats.

The meeting, part of the National Governors Association winter gathering, will only include Republican governors, according to multiple people familiar with the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss scheduling that was not public.

Although Trump breaking with decades of bipartisan norms in refusing to meet with any Democrats at the National Governors Association meeting could be considered bad enough, for residents of two particularly disfavored blue states, one additional pompously-imposed indignity is in store:

Mr. Trump is still planning to hold a separate, bipartisan dinner for governors and their spouses at the White House as part of the N.G.A. activities, but he personally blocked invites for two Democrats: Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland and Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado…

Considering that Trump has unleashed the full weight of the federal government in retaliation against Colorado for our list of personal offenses culminating in the imprisonment of former Mesa County Clerk and “election truther” Tina Peters for reasons Trump may or may not comprehend, it’s hard to imagine what Gov. Jared Polis would have to politely discuss with Trump at this moment–although we know Polis would make every attempt to keep his interactions diplomatic, that being his personal style. Responding to Trump’s conspicuous non-invitation, the governor’s office was more polite than we would have been:

“Governor Polis has always been willing to work with anyone across the political spectrum who wants to help work on the hardest problems facing Colorado and America, regardless of party or who occupies the White House,” Shelby Wieman, a spokeswoman for Mr. Polis, said in a statement.

Although this disinvitation was reportedly from President Trump personally, it’s not beyond belief that Trump’s staff would not want Polis to have access, lest Trump become the victim of another charm offensive that turned Republican antipathy toward the new Mayor of New York City on its head. But either way, with Trump’s public approval in freefall and fellow Republicans with any sense of self-preservation plotting a separation strategy from the unpopular President ahead of what’s expected to be a metaphorical mid-term bloodbath, it’s fair to ask whether being the subject of Trump’s spiteful acts of revenge, especially when it’s a dinner invite and not hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for the state…matters at all. After all, we’re consistently winning the money back in court.

With all of this in mind, telling the President of the United States where he can cram his dinner invite has no real political downside.