Tim Skubick

At a time 14 months ago when other governors were lambasting President Donald Trump on a variety of issues, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer sat peacefully in the executive residence living room back in December of 2024 and revealed a secret that not only gave those other chief executives pause, it set into motion an “odd couple” story the likes of which we’ve never seen before with all due respect to Felix and Oscar.

As you read the following quotes, put it in context. Former President Trump during the peak of the COVID mess referred to Gretchen Whitmer as “that woman from Michigan.” Her supporters called it demeaning and a host of other adjectives not printable in a family newspaper. Let’s just say the two were not drinking buds.

But there she was at home years later responding to this question which she was fielding for the first time during her annual Evening with the Governor gig on Michigan Public TV.

Are you trying to lay the foundation for a strong working relationship with President-Elect Donald Trump?

“The people of Michigan and this country elected Donld Trump as the next president. My job is to work with him and I’m going to do everything I can to find common ground,” she produced tomorrow’s headline on the spot.

Just to be sure, the follow up was, “have you sent back channel signals to the president to say, “let’s work this thing out?” And then with a wry smile and a head fake, she volleyed, “if I told you about it, would it still be a back channel signal?” Good one hey.

So where did this notion come from while others were on a different tact that many Democrats embraced? Suffice it to say no other sitting governor with a “D” after their names was going her route.

Answer: it came around the dinner table in the Whitmer household. With a Democratic mom and a Republican dad, she reflected in her recent State of the State that, “the guiding lights of my live (were) my parents. My folks taught me to be kind, quick to laugh at myself, slow to judge others and always work hard”

What she also learned was how to seek compromises, to work with those who might not share your viewpoint, but for the good of the state, you still had to find that “common ground” that she was hoping to find with Mr. Trump.

And she did. Soon after that, there she was standing in the Oval office with House GOP Speaker Matt Hall as the two laid the groundwork for several “gets” from the gentleman behind the Oval office desk. And they eventually got those gets dealing with the Asian Carp threat to the Great Lakes and beefing up Selfridge field.

Mission accomplished.

So, getting top the meat of this column, how is is it going? She and the president have exchanged personal phone numbers and the other day she was asked for the first time how many calls have they shared?

“I don’t know, hum. I talk to him probably twice a month.” And it’s not a one way street. He calls her and she calls him.

That means 28 phone conversations, give or take, in the last year and two months. One might wonder how many such calls has anti-Trump Gov. Newsom had out in the California?

But the political landscape today is quite different than it was over a year ago, so has the tenor of the relationship gotten worse, better or about the same?

“I think it’s about the same,” she reports.

This despite the fact that, according to the governor, “obviously we see the world differently about 95 out of 100 things…We don’t agree on tariffs. We don’t agree on the ACA (Affordable Care Act) cuts. We don’t agree on how we treat people or deploy troops within our states. There are a lot of differences….”

Nonetheless she is not about to change her phone number.

“Neither of us pulls any punches but at the same token, if there are five things that I can find common ground with and get something done for Michigan then I’m going to take everyone of those opportunities,” as she adds, “I’m keeping the lanes of communication open because Michigan needs the federal government sometimes (and) that relationship has helped me deliver somethings for Michigan and I’m not one to take all the credit” when that happens.

Most recently in her State of the State she gave a shutout to the president for helping to land that new fighter wing at the aforementioned Selfridge field. She also made a reference to her failed effort to sway his thinking on tariffs which she argues has done grave damage to the carmakers in our state. She tried but failed. File it under “you can’t win them all but you still try.”

As for the future, who knows as she reflects prior to the situation in Iran, “he’s got a lot going on right now,” she observes…while waiting for the phone to ring.