Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said her appearance at the Oval Office was not an "endorsement" of President Donald Trump, as the Democrat has faced backlash for her latest White House visit.

Whitmer appeared alongside Trump on Wednesday after delivering a speech in which she said she understood some of "the motivation" behind the president's now largely paused global tariff plans.

Newsweek has contacted Whitmer's office for comment via email.

President Donald Trump praised Gretchen Whitmer in a White House meeting on Wednesday, echoing a bipartisan message the Michigan governor delivered during an earlier speech in Washington, D.C.

The meeting was Whitmer’s second sit-down with the president since he took office. She raised the ongoing ice storm in northern Michigan, investments in the Selfridge Air National Guard Base outside of Detroit, invasive fish in the Great Lakes and the hottest topic of the day — tariffs — according to a spokesperson for the governor.

For the second time in a month, Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was scheduled to meet with second-term Republican President Donald Trump on Wednesday as the state continues to confront tariff and manufacturing issues.

Before that meeting, Whitmer delivered a speech near the White House to lay out her long-term ideas to grow American manufacturing and build national defense.

Earlier this year, Whitmer was a vocal critic of Trump’s tariff plans but has been relatively silent since broad taxes on goods entering the country were enacted last week.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) distributed thousands of dollars in bonuses to key allies in state government, according to a new report.

In 2024, the governor expanded bonuses distributed to state employees as part of Michigan’s performance pay program to include political appointees, handing out over $145,000 to 15 Cabinet members and department directors, per records obtained by the Detroit Free Press under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act.

The race to be Kamala Harris’ running mate has already started.

Moments after President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential contest and endorsed his vice president on Sunday, speculation began swirling over who would be Kamala Harris’ running mate. Some Democrats started floating their preferred picks. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, for instance, “would be an excellent choice” to share the ticket, said Philadelphia Democratic Party chair and former Rep. Bob Brady.

Vice President Kamala Harris is now the most likely replacement for President Joe Biden after he dropped out of the 2024 race Sunday and endorsed her as the Democratic nominee—triggering a rushed competition among the Democratic Party’s rising stars to become her running mate.

Names commonly floated as replacements for Biden at the top of the ticket, mostly governors who served as surrogates for the Biden-Harris campaign and who have high approval ratings in their home states, would appear most likely to be top contenders for her running mate.

After President Joe Biden announced that he would suspend his reelection campaign, his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris to succeed him has propelled her to being the most likely Democratic nominee. Now, the question is who her running mate will be.

Four prominent Democrats would perform significantly better than President Biden in key swing states if they replaced him as the party’s presumptive nominee, according to a memo from a Democratic-funded polling group.

The BlueLabs draft memo, first acquired by Politico, found that “nearly every tested Democrat performs better than the President” in the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Michigan recently enacted laws that appear to crack down on voting irregularities or fraud, but state GOP lawmakers say they instead make effort to flag such problem more difficult and onerous. 

Among the measures signed into law last week by Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is one prohibiting election canvassers from investigating fraud allegations and instead requiring them to refer such concerns to a county prosecutor or the state's attorney general.