LANSING, Michigan — An enduringly popular social media meme depicts a Return of the Jedi rebel alliance leader, squid species Adm. Ackbar, warning of the Galactic Empire’s new-and-improved planet-destroying Death Star.
“It’s a trap!” utters Akbar, in a frantic space battle scene from the third and final installment of the original Star Wars trilogy, released in 1983.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) would have been wise to heed the gravelly-voiced Mon Calamari species character’s “it’s a trap” warning ahead of a recent Oval Office encounter with President Donald Trump.
Whitmer, 53, is an oft-mentioned 2028 Democratic presidential candidate in what will be an open White House race. On April 9, Whitmer was in Washington, D.C., to discuss a range of Michigan-related issues with Trump and his administration. Topics included funding for an Air National Guard base near Detroit, aid for thousands of Michiganders who were hit by an ice storm, and strategies to keep invasive Asian carp away from the Great Lakes.
To Whitmer’s surprise, Trump aides ushered her into the Oval Office, with the White House press corps gathered for the president’s signing of executive orders. Not just any presidential directives, but a pair of politically loaded ones.
One order revoked Chris Krebs’s security clearances. Krebs led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency during Trump’s first term and became a national figure when he rebutted his claims that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen.
The other executive order similarly targeted Miles Taylor, a one-time chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security. Taylor anonymously wrote a New York Times opinion essay in 2018, accusing Trump of rampant “amorality” and telling of an internal government “resistance.”
Trump’s executive orders also revoked the security clearances of people and institutions affiliated with Krebs and Taylor and called for investigations into their government tenures.
The executive orders drew widespread condemnation of Trump for using government resources to carry out personal vendettas. Meanwhile, Whitmer watched from the sidelines and was photographed hiding her face behind a stack of binders.
To resistance liberals, the moment encapsulated what they’ve called weak responses to Trump’s actions during the first three months-plus of his second presidency. They suggested Whitmer could have extemporaneously confronted Trump in the Oval Office over blatantly unconstitutional actions, rather than cowering in a corner and trying not to be seen.
“It’s rare when you get a shot of the EXACT moment a politician’s career ends, but there you go,” Keith Olbermann mocked in an X post.
Whitmer tried to brush off the controversy in a Detroit speech days later.
“I didn’t want my picture taken. That’s all it was,” Whitmer said. “I kind of wish I hadn’t put my folder up in front of my face. But whatever. You know, I was there. I mean, I just wrote a book about learning to laugh at yourself, so I’m pretty good at it.”
Still, the political damage seemed to be done.
“I’ve never seen such an own goal as what she did in the Oval Office,” Jamie Roe, a Republican consultant based in Macomb County, Michigan, said in an interview. “You never want to become a meme, and she has now become a meme.”
Mixed reviews of Whitmer’s Michigan tenure
Whitmer’s national profile has grown in recent years. In 2018, when she was a state senator, she won the open Michigan governorship amid wide voter dissatisfaction with Trump during his first term.
After four years of battling a Republican legislative majority and becoming a target of rhetorical attacks from Trump, Whitmer won reelection in 2022 by a double-digit margin. For two years, Democrats enjoyed a governing trifecta in the state capital of Lansing, with Whitmer as governor and the party controlling both legislative chambers. Though the state House flipped back to Republican control in 2024, as Trump won Michigan and the presidency for the second time in three elections.
Whitmer comes from a government background. Raised as one of three children in Grand Rapids and East Lansing, Whitmer’s father was the chief of the state Commerce Department in a Republican administration and later the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield. Whitmer’s mother was a senior lawyer in the state attorney general’s office.
Douglas Koopman, a political science professor at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, said Whitmer’s background has helped her work across the aisle during his six-plus years as governor.
“She’s a product of the Grand Rapids-Lansing world. With Republican roots as much as Democratic roots,” Koopman said. “West Michigan is traditionally Republican — a business Republican-dominated region. Members of both parties learn how to work together in that world.”
As Michigan governor, Whitmer drew national attention during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Whitmer took an aggressive stance and became a fixture on television. She imposed limits under what many saw as dubious interpretations of executive powers that became targets of legal attack by the GOP-controlled legislature,” says the 2024 Almanac of American Politics. “The moves sparked armed protests outside — and even inside — the state capitol, and Trump and his allies elevated Whitmer as a pandemic villain.”
But Koopman said bipartisan accomplishments in Lansing on education, infrastructure, and other issues would give Whitmer a fighting chance at winning the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination.
“I think she’s incredibly talented. I’ve seen her in public events and a few smaller, social receptions,” Koopman said, noting her good humor and ability to connect with voters across the political spectrum. “She seems to be a happy warrior, in the tradition of Hubert Humphrey. This is a fun thing for her, but it’s not the most serious thing in the world.”
In a 2028 Democratic primary race, Whitmer would likely face a large field. The party’s 2024 nominee, former Vice President Kamala Harris, hasn’t ruled out a comeback bid, though she seems more likely to pursue the soon-to-be-open California governorship in 2026. Harris’s running mate last year, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), is also keeping open his 2028 presidential chances through a series of appearances around the country with fiery anti-Trump rhetoric.
Other possible candidates include Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY), Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, former Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC), former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL), and Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA).
The biggest challenge for Whitmer in a 2028 presidential run would be the populist Left’s anger at Trump, embodied by Ocasio-Cortez, an acolyte of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the socialist who sought the 2016 and 2020 Democratic presidential nominations.
“Thinking about the Democratic primary process, that’s her first hurdle. She’s got progressive bona fides, but she’s had to work with Republicans because the legislature has been controlled by the GOP, at least in part, for most of her time as governor,” said Peter Wielhouwer, a political science professor at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.
“Gretchen Whitmer has been able to thread that needle. But I don’t know that a needle-threader is going to win the nomination,” Wielhouwer said.
Nor is Whitmer’s gubernatorial record necessarily an asset in a general election, if she made it that far, Roe said. In 2024, the county, north of Detroit in Michigan’s “mitten,” backed Trump over Harris about 56% to 42%.
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“It’s almost like she’s checked out on her job. She’s never here anymore. She’s been doing all these foreign trips, and allegedly trying to attract jobs, but has come back empty-handed,” Roe said. “The national Democrats are so desperate for a leader right now. She’s been a gifted politician in the past, but her performance as governor really hasn’t delivered results.”
Whitmer and supporters would, needless to say, offer a much rosier view of her governorship and, in a 2028 presidential bid, point to political and legislative accomplishments leading a large, diverse, and politically competitive state. The trick will be avoiding political traps, such as the one Trump’s White House team set and, decades ago, Ackbar warned of.
