Trump Tells Governors to Enact Death Penalty for Drug Dealers, Confronts Maine Governor

By Ariana Figueroa for States Newsroom

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump in a sometimes tense meeting Friday with the nation’s governors pressed them to enact the death penalty for drug dealers and issued a threat to Maine’s Democratic chief executive over her state’s law protecting transgender people from discrimination.

Trump at the normally staid annual White House get-together with bipartisan members of the National Governors Association at their winter meeting also talked about the federal government’s support of school choice, an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the recent terrorist designation of a Venezuelan gang and a potential 25% tariff on foreign cars this spring.

Trump said he plans to start the tariffs on April 2, because he doesn’t want to issue them on April Fools’ Day.

“It’s going to cost a lot of money to wait one day,” he joked about the tariffs.

Trump also said talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin are going “very good,” as opposed to “not such good talks with Ukraine” about ending the war Russia started in 2022.

Trump said he designated the Venezuela gang Tren de Aragua as terrorists, and cited as his reasoning a widely debunked story about the gang taking over an apartment complex in Colorado.

Trump then said the gang was similar to him, because of his dealings in real estate.

“They’re like me, they’re in the real estate business,” Trump said. “They take over and they literally take it over. They just claim it.”

He added that he is supportive of governors, such as Georgia’s GOP Governor Brian Kemp, who have prioritized school choice, which lets families use public money for schools not in their neighborhood public school.

According to the pool report, those in attendance included Democratic Governors Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Wes Moore of Maryland, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Tony Evers of Wisconsin, Phil Murphy of New Jersey, Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Laura Kelly of Kansas, Kathy Hochul of New York and Jared Polis of Colorado.

Republican governors in attendance included Kemp, Henry McMaster of South Carolina, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, Mark Gordon of Wyoming, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Tate Reeves of Mississippi and Mike Braun of Indiana.

Spat with Maine Governor

During the visit, Trump pledged to work with Democrats.

But he then quickly threatened to pull federal funding from Democratic Maine Governor Janet Mills’ state if it did not comply with an executive order that restricts transgender athletes’ participation in school sports.

He singled out Mills and asked if she was going to comply with the executive order.

“I’m going to comply with state and federal law,” Mills said.

“We are the federal law,” Trump said. “You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t.”

Mills said she would follow state law, which has anti-discrimination laws that protect transgender people.

“We’ll see you in court,” Mills said.

Trump retorted that he hopes she enjoys her life after being governor, “because I don’t think you’ll be an elected official afterwards.”

Mills’ second term, which is her last one due to term limits, ends in 2027.

Feds and States

The president took a handful of questions from governors about how the federal government can work with states.

Polis asked Trump how the federal government can streamline disaster response so it occurs more quickly.

“We’ve all had disasters,” Polis said.

Trump said that he agreed disaster response should be faster.

Braun asked about high health care costs and described how he wanted to reform the industry.

“We all deal with high health care costs in government and the private sector,” Braun said.

Trump said that Indiana was a good example of lowering health care costs. A recent study by the RAND Corp., a think tank, found Indiana’s hospital prices were 8th-highest in the nation.

“As you have ideas, I’d love you to pass them along to the other governors here, but there are some states that have done a really, really good job of that, and we are totally open to suggestions,” Trump said.

Death Penalty

South Carolina’s McMaster said that a problem his state is seeing is fentanyl being brought in through mail packages from China.

Trump said that he had a previous conversation with China’s President Xi Jinping about enacting the death penalty for drug dealers in China.

“If you notice that every country that has the death penalty has no drug problem,” Trump said.

Trump, who has often advocated for the death penalty, including for drug dealers, then pressed the states to take that action.

“Your states have the right to go death penalty also for drug dealers,” Trump said. “But only do that if you want to get rid of drugs.”

South Carolina is a death penalty state and attorneys for a death row inmate convicted of a different type of crime, Brad Sigmon, said Friday he has selected the firing squad for his scheduled execution, which would be a first in South Carolina.

He was sentenced to death in 2002 for beating his ex-girlfriend’s parents to death with a baseball bat at their Greenville County home, then attempting to kidnap their daughter.

Trump said that the federal government plans to roll out an anti-drug campaign that shows the “brutal” impact of drugs on the body.

He said the advertisements will say using drugs “destroys your skin, it destroys your teeth, it destroys your brain, it destroys everything.”