ALBANY, N.Y. – They warned about him. Now they'll have to work with him.
A handful of prominent Democratic governors are quickly adjusting their approach to President-elect Donald Trump before he takes office, hoping to avoid antagonizing him to ensure they'll have a working relationship with his new administration.
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They're in a precarious position: adopting caution while also weighing their party's desires to stake out early, and often combative, positions against Trump's agenda.
“It’s a combination of fighting like hell if your values are attacked or if your innocent communities or innocent people are attacked. And then on the other hand, you’re trying like heck also to find common ground on things that we could agree on,” New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is walking a similar tightrope, vowing to push back against Trump on potential policies against reproductive rights, while also appearing hopeful that she and the Republican can work together.
Hochul, who slammed Trump during a speech at the Democratic National Convention and was a prominent campaign surrogate for Democrats this year, has said she and Trump spoke at length after his election victory and were able to find common ground.
“There are areas where we can work together, like infrastructure where we rely on federal money, and he seems to share my priorities, but also I'm going to stand up for protecting rights, reproductive rights and other rights,” she said at a news conference.
Asked this week whether as governor she would consider pardoning Trump in his New York hush money criminal conviction, Hochul notably didn't shut down the question. “There is a pardoning process in the state of New York. It is lengthy. It requires a couple of elements. One is remorse," she said, letting out a quick laugh.
A New York jury convicted Trump earlier this year on all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
Other Democrats have taken decidedly more combative stances.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a fierce Trump critic, summoned lawmakers back to work this month to allocate more money to the state attorney general's office so it can launch anticipated legal battles against the Trump administration. Newsom's goal, as he put it, is to “Trump-proof” California's progressive state laws.
Shortly after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Colorado Gov. Jared Polisformed a group called Governors Safeguarding Democracy to “fortify democratic institutions in the states and ensure the rule of law serves all people,” according to the group's website.
Still, Polis has put on a balancing act in his relationship with Trump. He's expressed excitement for Trump’s pick of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, saying he was hopeful Kennedy would take on “big pharma and corporate ag.”
In Massachusetts, Democratic Gov. Maura Healey has taken a somewhat less confrontational attitude toward Trump than she did four years ago when she was the state’s attorney general. Back then, Healey initiated or joined dozens of lawsuits targeting Trump on everything from immigration policy to health care and environmental issues.
Now as governor of a state that Harris easily won but where Trump got more than 35% of the vote, Healey has sounded more muted in her criticism.
“I think I’ve spoken quite a bit about Donald Trump and my feelings about him,” Healey told reporters after Trump’s win. “We have to see whether he makes good on what he promised and ran on in terms of Project 2025 or other things," she said, referring a hard-right policy plan.
Healey has indicated that state police won’t help enforce violations of federal immigration law — a key Trump priority — but has been less clear about whether she would bar the state National Guard from helping detain those in the country illegally.
As co-chair of Harris’ presidential campaign, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer frequently warned about the dangers of a second Trump presidency, describing him as “deranged” and declaring that his reelection would signify that “we failed as a country.”
But after Trump’s victory, the second-term governor has largely stayed out of the spotlight and said little about how she will address some of his policy proposals, such as mass deportations.
“I know that some of my colleagues have staked out some pretty aggressive strategies,” Whitmer told reporters days after the election. “As I’m thinking about what a Trump administration will mean for our work, I’m trying to focus on where we can find some shared priorities.”
Those close to Whitmer describe her approach as a wait-and-see strategy, with hopes of working with the president-elect on areas of shared interest, such as economic development.
“We have worked with the Trump administration before and we will figure out how to work with a Trump administration going into this last two years of my term,” said Whitmer.
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Associated Press writers Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey; Jesse Bedayn in Denver; Steve LeBlanc in Boston and Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan contributed to this report.