Trump’s spat with Maine gov draws reaction from Republican senator

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., reacted to Maine Gov. Janet Mills’ spat with President Donald Trump over the issue of transgender inclusion in women’s sports.

Trump signed the “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order earlier this month to ensure that no transgender athletes compete against women or girls in sports. Some states, like Maine, have bucked the executive order.

It all led to a public dustup between Mills and Trump on Friday. Trump threatened to withhold federal funding if the state continued to allow trans athletes in women’s sports. Mills retorted, “We’ll see you in court.” 

Blackburn talked about Maine’s decision in an interview on “Fox News Live” with anchor Mike Emanuel.

“This is one of those defining issues between the left and the right,” she said. “We fully believe that President Trump is right on this. It is the policy of the federal government that we will support Title IX, as there, for women and women’s sports, and we will not support men, biological men in women sports. and as President Trump said that this is the federal position and therefore the governor should be enforcing that. 

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“She should want to protect women and women’s sports. It is unbelievable that she would choose to not do that.”

The executive director of the primary governing body for high school sports in the state of Maine said athletic teams will continue to determine eligibility based on a student’s stated gender identity, despite the president’s executive order seeking to keep “men out of women’s sports.”

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat who serves as the chairman of the National Governors Association, talked about Mills and Trump’s spat.

“As governors, we have our prior initiative that we continue to work on is to disagree better,” Polis said.

“We always hope that people can disagree in a way that elevates the discourse and tries to come to a common solution around… what the issue is. I don’t think that that disagreement is necessarily a model of that,” he continued, adding that some governors may not have known the origins of the fiery exchange at the time.

Fox News’ Charlie Creitz and Jackson Thompson contributed to this report.

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