(The Center Square) — President Donald Trump is demanding a “full throttled apology” from Maine Gov. Janet Mills over her pushback on his executive order banning transgender athletes from women’s and girls’ sports.
Trump made the demand Saturday in a post on Truth Social, saying while the Democratic governor apologized for her “strong, but totally incorrect” statement about men playing in women’s sports 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.”
“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,” Trump wrote. “I’m sure she will be able to do that quite easily.”
There was no immediate response from Mills, who told the Republican president, “We’ll see you in court” when he threatened to pull federal funding from Maine if it failed to comply with his order to ban trans athletes from playing in women’s and girls sports. It also wasn’t clear what “apology” the president was referring to in his social media post.
Maine has become the epicenter of a nationwide culture war fight over transgender rights after Trump confronted Mills last month about allowing trans athletes to play on teams that align with their gender identity.
The Trump administration is threatening to withhold federal funding from Maine and other states to force compliance with the president’s Feb. 5 executive order banning transgender men from competing in women’s sports.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued a notice that Maine, the Maine Principals’ Association, and Greely High School are in violation of Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding as its foundation. The federal agency gave the state 10 days to comply with the order or face possible prosecution by the Department of Justice.
But Mills has refused to back down in the dispute and argues that the state is on the right side of the law by allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports.
“In America, the President is neither a King nor a dictator, as much as this one tries to act like it — and it is the rule of law that prevents him from being so,” Mills said in a recent statement.
