More than a dozen Democrat governors have signed on to a new health alliance that is effectively meant to challenge the Trump administration’s health agencies.
The Governors’ Public Health Association, which was created last week, seeks to dole out medical guidance that will likely be at odds with the Trump administration’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It will make recommendations on vaccines and other public health measures, and work with allied states to share medical statistics and data.
It’s been pitched as “non-partisan” and science- and health-backed, and a way to restore public trust. However, only Democrat governors have signed on to the initiative. So far, those states include California, Illinois, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and the territory of Guam.
Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesman Andrew Nixon has called out the allied Democrat governors for imposing school closures and mask mandates, even for toddlers, during the pandemic. He asserted that they are the ones who “destroyed public trust in public health” — not the Trump administration.
Join us now during our exclusive Deal of the Decade. Get everything for $7 a month. Not as fans. As fighters. Go to DailyWire.com/Subscribe to join now.
Nixon added that Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are rebuilding that trust “by grounding every policy in rigorous evidence and Gold Standard Science – not the failed politics of the pandemic.”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) unsurprisingly signed on to the Governors’ Public Health Association, and has claimed it’s a necessary body since “public health should never be politicized.” Trump and RFK, he claims, have turned the CDC “into a misinformation machine.”
Fellow Democrat, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, similarly emphasized that science should be put before politics. Newsom, who supports sex changes for minors based on “gender identity,” added that “extremists” are trying to “weaponize the CDC and spread misinformation.”
The association is primarily funded by a nonprofit called Governors Action Alliance, known as GovAct. The nonprofit claims to be nonpartisan, but supports Democrat causes and generally teams up with Democrats to expand Medicaid and bolster so-called abortion and voting rights.
Notably, GovAct is behind the “Reproductive Freedom Alliance,” which is a coalition of Democrat governors working to expand abortion. The nonprofit dumped more than half a billion dollars into the initiative. It’s also behind the “Governors Safeguarding Democracy” alliance, which was launched to resist Trump shortly after he won the 2024 election.
The goal of the Governors’ Public Health Association is seemingly to undermine the FDA and CDC with heavy focus on vaccine and abortion “access.”
This will, however, come with complications for Democrats. States have to comply with certain federal health guidance or standards if they want federal funding. Additionally, health insurers generally follow federal guidance for their coverage, and large health insurers operate in multiple states if not nationwide. It would be chaotic and impractical to implement different sets of standards in different states.
Opposing guidance could also trigger legal battles. For example, the FDA is currently reviewing the safety of a controversial abortion pill called mifepristone. If there were some determination that the governors’ alliance disagreed with, that could potentially set up a legal challenge.
