What to know about Janet Mills, the Maine governor who told Trump, ‘See you in court.
"Good. Some Trump Officials Push Back Against Musk’s Ultimatum to Workers"
One more, YAY Maine
Feb. 22, 2025, 4:35 p.m. ET Feb. 22, 2025
Katie Benner
Gov. Janet Mills told President Trump on Friday that she would not accede to his executive order banning transgender athletes in women’s sports. Michael Swensen for The New York Times
After Janet Mills, the Democratic governor of Maine, challenged President Trump during a White House meeting, she became both a folk hero to her party and a political target whose state now faces a federal investigation by the Department of Education.
Ms. Mills, 77, told Mr. Trump on Friday that she would not accede to his executive order banning .. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/us/politics/trump-order-transgender-athletes-womens-sports.html .. transgender athletes in women’s sports. “See you in court,” she said, while seated with a group of bipartisan governors in the White House State Dining Room. The U.S. Department of Education promptly informed Maine officials that the state’s education department was under a “directed investigation.”
[Insert: Putin smiles]
The Trump administration “will do everything in its power to ensure taxpayers are not funding blatant civil rights violators,” said Craig Trainor, the acting head of the U.S. Department of Education’s civil rights division. He said that Maine would lose federal funds if it did not comply.
Ms. Mills did not stand down.
“Do not be misled: This is not just about who can compete on the athletic field, this is about whether a president can force compliance with his will, without regard for the rule of law,” the governor said in a statement on the escalating conflict. “I believe he cannot.”
The fight has thrust Ms. Mills, a fixture in Maine politics, onto the national stage. And it was her opposition to the first Trump administration’s hard-line immigration and anti-abortion policies that helped her become the state’s first female governor.
But her nearly five decades in state politics has been propelled by her support for law enforcement and her record as a criminal prosecutor.
Born in Farmington, Maine, an agricultural and manufacturing center, she was raised in a political family. Her father was Sumner Peter Mills Jr. .. https://www.pressherald.com/2015/09/29/mills-siblings-hailed-for-lives-of-service/ , a lawyer and Republican state legislator who served as the U.S. attorney for Maine under the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations.
After graduating from the University of Massachusetts and the University of Maine School of Law, Ms. Mills became Maine’s first female criminal prosecutor in the attorney general’s office. In a 1978 interview, she said, “I like prosecuting murder trials the best.”
She then became the first woman in all of New England to win a district attorney seat, pushing for better treatment of victims of domestic violence by the criminal justice system. In 2002, she won a seat in the State Legislature, and in 2009, she became Maine’s first female attorney general.
While serving as Maine’s top prosecutor, Ms. Mills clashed with Paul LePage, the conservative governor and a Trump acolyte. When Mr. LePage vetoed legislation giving the police more access to opioid overdose medication, she used settlement funds to pay for the treatment. She refused to help Mr. LePage support Mr. Trump’s 2017 ban on immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries, instead challenging the executive order in court. Mr. LePage unsuccessfully sued her .. https://casetext.com/case/lepage-v-mills .
In 2019, with Governor LePage term limited, Ms. Mills was elected to lead the state.
Ms. Mills has focused on economic policies and expanding health insurance coverage, but she has also worked with legislators to prevent health insurers from discriminating against transgender people, to allow gender-affirming hormone therapy under some circumstances for people who are 16 and older, and to enact a law that protects providers of gender transition care from being sued by other states.
She has not enacted any bills related to trans athletes, but the governor’s office does not decide who participates in high school sports. That choice is made by the Maine Principals’ Association, an independent body that oversees student sports in the state.
Before the election, Mr. Trump did not seem to know who Ms. Mills was. While campaigning in October, he mistakenly referred to Ms. Mills as a man during a call with supporters and accused her, wrongly, of planning to bring 75,000 immigrants to the state. “He’s weak and ineffective,” Mr. Trump said.
Vice President Kamala Harris won Maine, but voters leaned more right than in the past. Ms. Mills took a measured approach to Mr. Trump’s victory, telling the Portland Press Herald that she would support policies that benefit Maine and oppose ones those that hurt it.
“It’s as simple as that,” Ms. Mills said.
After Ms. Mills clashed with Mr. Trump on Friday, she predicted that Maine will not be the last state that the president investigates for defying orders that conflict with the law.
“You must ask yourself: Who and what will he target next, and what will he do,” she said. “Will it be you? Will it be because of your race or your religion? Will it be because you look different or think differently? Where does it end?”
Trump’s Cabinet members have already backtracked on some promises made before being confirmed
"Some Trump Officials Push Back Against Musk’s Ultimatum to Workers"
By MEG KINNARD Updated 2:51 PM CST, February 24, 2025
WASHINGTON (AP) — As they mustered support for their confirmations by the U.S. Senate, some of President Donald Trump’s appointees made statements from which they’ve already distanced themselves upon taking office.
From the leadership of the FBI to vaccine schedules and Russia sanctions, here’s a look at some of those promises and the subsequent action in their own words.
Requests for comment with all four agencies on their chiefs’ remarks were not immediately returned Monday afternoon.
Kash Patel, FBI director
What he’s said: According to Natalie Bara, president of the FBI Agents Association, Patel agreed last month — before becoming FBI director — that the agency’s No. 2 position should be held by a career agent as has been tradition for the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency.
Bara wrote in an internal newsletter to members sent Feb. 23 that Patel had agreed during a January meeting with her that the FBI deputy director “should continue to be an on-board, active Special Agent as has been the case for 117 years for many compelling reasons, including operational expertise and experience, as well as the trust of our Special Agent population.”
What he’s done: Patel cheered Trump’s decision to go the opposite direction.
Later Sunday, after Bara’s internal newsletter with Patel’s comments, Trump announced in a post on his Truth Social platform that Dan Bongino, a former U.S. Secret Service agent who ran unsuccessfully for office and gained fame as a conservative pundit with TV shows and a popular podcast, had been chosen to serve as FBI deputy director.
“Tremendous news for law enforcement and the future of American justice!” Patel wrote Feb. 24 in a social media post welcoming Bongino. “His leadership, integrity, and deep commitment to justice make him the ideal choice to help lead the FBI at this critical time. He’s a cop’s cop.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., health and human services secretary
What he’s said: During his Senate confirmation hearings, Kennedy promised Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., that he would not change the nation’s current vaccination schedule.
“I recommend that children follow the CDC schedule, and I will support the CDC schedule when I get in there if I’m fortunate enough to be confirmed,” Kennedy told senators Jan. 30.
What he’s done: Speaking for the first time to thousands of U.S. Health and Human Services agency employees, Kennedy on Feb. 18 vowed to investigate the childhood vaccine schedule that prevents measles, polio and other dangerous diseases.
“Nothing is going to be off limits,” he said, adding that pesticides, food additives, microplastics, antidepressants and the electromagnetic waves emitted by cellphones and microwaves also would be studied.
Scott Bessent, treasury secretary
What he’s said: During his confirmation hearing, Bessent called for stronger sanctions on Russia, saying that former President Joe Biden wasn’t “muscular” enough on sanctioning Russian oil because he was too scared of driving the cost of oil up during the elections.
“I believe the previous administration was worried about raising U.S. energy prices during an election season,” he told senators Jan. 16.
What he’s done: As Trump’s tone on Russia changed, however, Bessent said the U.S. is prepared to either ramp up or take down sanctions on Russia depending on Russia’s willingness to negotiate an end to the war.
“That’d be a very good characterization,” Bessent told Bloomberg Television on Feb. 20, in response to a question about the potential for adjustments of sanctions on Russia, in either direction. “The president is committed to ending this conflict very quickly.”
Brooke Rollins, agriculture secretary
What she’s said: “It is one of my top four priorities on day one, putting the right team in place to ensure that what you discussed and outlined is happening,” Rollins told senators Jan 23, in response to a question as to how she would stem the spread of avian flu.
What she’s done: In comments to agency staff, Rollins said Feb. 14 that she was “proud to invite the Department of Government Efficiency here into USDA,” saying she welcomed the effort “with open arms.”
Four days later, the department scrambled to rehire several workers who were involved in the government’s response to the ongoing bird flu outbreak that has devastated egg and poultry farms over the past three years, but who were among the thousands of federal employees eliminated on Musk’s recommendations.
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