President Trump continued his feud with Maine Governor Janet Mills on Saturday morning, firing off a social media post demanding that she owes him a “full throated apology’’ amid their scrap over trans athletes.
“While the State of Maine has apologized for their Governor’s strong, but totally incorrect, statement about men playing in women’s sports while at the White House House Governor’s Conference, we have not heard from the Governor herself, and she is the one that matters in such cases,’’ Trump wrote shortly before 8 a.m. on his social media platform, Truth Social. “Therefore, we need a full throated apology from the Governor herself, and a statement that she will never make such an unlawful challenge to the Federal Government again, before this case can be settled.’’
Mills’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
The office of Maine House Speaker Ryan Fecteau declined to comment Saturday afternoon.
Trump and Mills have continued to trade public barbs in the month since Trump singled out Mills at a gathering of governors Feb. 21, asking if she planned to obey his executive order against allowing trans athletes to participate in women’s sports.
At the time, an ongoing controversy in Maine followed the participation of a transgender high school athlete in a girls’ indoor track and field championship at Greely High School in Cumberland that took place Feb. 17, in which the student won first place. A conservative state legislator, Representative Laurel Libby, railed against the participation of the teen.
When Mills replied to Trump that she was complying with state and federal law, Trump announced that “we are the federal law’’ — and warned that “you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t.’’
Mills said: “See you in court.’’
Shortly after the meeting, Trump’s federal government began casting a sharp eye at Maine. The US departments of Education and Health and Human Services opened inquiries into the Maine Department of Education. The US Department of Justice sent a letter that “Maine should be on notice’’ of a potential lawsuit.
Mills compared Trump to Louis XIV, a king of France associated with the quote “l’etat, c’est moi’’ — I am the state.
“In my conversation with the President last week, unfortunately, he made a statement that I have never heard any president say this before that he is the law,’’ Mills told reporters. “He said I or we are the federal law. It’s like Louis XIV.’’
Mills also said transgender women participating in girls and women’s sports is “worthy of debate’’ and is an issue for the Legislature to decide.
This week, the federal government said in a press release that the state’s university system had said trans women are not allowed to compete in women’s sports. The statement from the USDA, which provides funding to the college system, touted this as a Trump victory.
After Trump’s post on Saturday, Libby, the state representative who’d taken issue with the trans teen competing, wrote on the social media platform X, “Thankful for President Trump’s strong stance on behalf of Maine girls. Biological males are still participating in girls’ sports, and it’s time for that to end!’’
Sean Cotter can be reached at sean.cotter@globe.com.Globe correspondent Talia Lissauer contributed to this report.
