Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said she is “looking to collaborate” with President Donald Trump after embracing policies antithetical to those of the new administration.
“We do have a problem at our southern border,” she said in an interview with CBS Mornings on Monday. “I’ve sent my national guard down to help with surveillance under both a Biden administration and a Trump administration.”
Michigan @GovWhitmer says she wants to find common ground and is “looking to collaborate” with the Trump administration, after her state voted for President Trump in the 2024 election.
Whitmer tells CBS Mornings about listening to her constituents and the young adult edition of… pic.twitter.com/Nx5caW0jVX
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) January 27, 2025
Whitmer, however, called for the abolishment of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when running for governor in 2018.
She said the agency is “doing a fundamentally cruel and unconstitutional, undemocratic work.”
“So, you think we should abolish it [ICE]?” she was asked in the video.
“Yeah, I think our governor needs to stand up,” she replied.
Whitmer was a strong critic of Trump throughout his first term in office. She called the president’s suggestion of sending federal law enforcement officers into cities to quell rioting during the George Floyd demonstrations in 2020 “deeply disturbing.” The governor also slammed his concerns over universal mail-in ballots and his criticism of the U.S. Postal Service. She also said his decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords “wrong” in Nov. 2019 and accused him of playing “partisan games” when he went after Michigan for forcing nursing homes to re-admit elderly Covid-19-positive patients.
“I will hold the president accountable for endangering and dividing America,” she wrote in a Washington Post op-ed in 2020. She claimed that year that Trump’s rhetoric incited attempts at political violence while addressing a kidnapping attempt against her that was later revealed to be at least in part orchestrated by FBI informants. (RELATED: PATEL: The Truth About The Post Office Controversy)
Whitmer faced intense criticism for her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. She signed an aggressive stay-at-home order that banned all public gatherings of any size and barred residents from traveling between homes, even if they owned both properties.
Whitmer later walked back some of her pandemic policies, claiming in a March 2023 interview with CNN, “You know, there were moments where, you know, we had to make some decisions that in retrospect don’t make a lot of sense.”
“Some of those policies I look back and think maybe that was a little more than what we needed to do,” she told anchor Chris Wallace.
This is not the first time Whitmer has showed willingness to work with the Trump administration.
“Michiganders elected both me and Donald Trump twice just two years apart. Every one of us swore an oath to the people we serve, and the people expect us to find common ground,” the governor said at a Detroit Auto Show on Jan. 15. “Now I don’t want to pretend we’re always going to agree, but I will always seek collaboration first.” (RELATED: Only One Democrat Seems Dumb Enough To Go Full ‘Resistance’ Against Trump)
Whitmer also faced backlash from the Catholic community for a video showing her feeding a Dorito to a feminist social media influencer in October.
WTF is Gretchen Whitmer doing?!!
Someone, make it stop please!!! pic.twitter.com/Arpj7q5e74
— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) October 10, 2024
The video seems to depict the act of communion between Whitmer and Liz Plank, an MSNBC columnist who was interviewing the governor about politics and the 2024 election.
“Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer insulted Catholics nationwide when she intentionally ridiculed the Eucharist in a video,” President Bill Donohue of the Catholic League said in a statement to The Hill. “There is no way to understand this stunt other than as an expression of vintage anti-Catholic bigotry. Whitmer’s team, and her allies in the media, are trying to distort what she did.”
Donald Trump won the swing state of Michigan by 1.4% in the 2024 presidential election. A Washington Post poll prior to the election showed that Michiganders trusted Trump to handle the economy and immigration, their two most important issues, more than Kamala Harris.
Source: Oct. 24-28, 2024, Washington Post poll of 1,003 registered voters in Michigan with an error margin of +/- 3.7 percentage points.
Other Democrats, like Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, have signaled a willingness to work with Trump. (RELATED: While Many Liberals Warn Of Next Four Years, Some Signal Chumminess And Willingness To Work With Trump Administration)
Fetterman joined his Republican peers in the Senate in passing the Laken Riley Act, which Trump is expected to sign Wednesday. He has also said he is open to consensually buying Greenland. “I do think it’s a responsible conversation,” Fetterman said in a discussion with Fox News.
Murphy wrote a letter to the president on Jan. 20 expressing his desire to address “New York’s congestion pricing scheme.”
“I welcome any opportunity to work with you and your administration where we can find common ground. One area where I believe our priorities align is congestion pricing,” he said in his letter.
Today I sent a letter to President Trump urging his Administration to reexamine New York’s congestion pricing scheme.
Congestion pricing is a disaster for New Jersey commuters and must receive the close look it deserves from the federal government. pic.twitter.com/rAX1WqrFjH
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) January 20, 2025
Whitmer is a potential Democratic presidential nominee in 2028.