Cate Starmer rolled her eyes when Gov. Phil Scott said in November that Vermonters should give President Donald Trump the “opportunity to do better” than in his first term.
She shook her head when Scott issued a statement welcoming Vice President JD Vance and his family to a ski vacation at Sugarbush Resort earlier this month and urged Vermonters to “be respectful.”
And she is still fuming over Scott’s refusal to denounce Trump’s firing of federal workers, threats of mass deportations or proposed budget cuts.
The Waterbury resident — who voted for Scott — is a cofounder of the grassroots group Camel’s Hump Indivisible. She says she’s fed up with Scott’s passive approach and wants the governor to take a stand against Trump policies that are already hurting Vermonters.
“We’ve moved beyond ‘wait and see’ as an acceptable response to the current situation,” Starmer told Seven Days last week.
A number of elected officials in Vermont have already enlisted in the resistance to Trump 2.0. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has been barnstorming across the Midwest on a “Fight Oligarchy” tour. Attorney General Charity Clark, a Democrat, has joined in six lawsuits to challenge Trump policies she calls unconstitutional. And U.S. Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) boycotted Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress last week, denouncing his “lies.”
“I don’t want to give the administration what they are looking for.” Gov. Phil Scott
So far, Vermont’s moderate Republican governor has taken a more measured approach to Trump’s second term. He has expressed respect for the office and a desire to work with the president when possible and has only opposed him occasionally, such as when Trump falsely declared that Ukraine started the war with Russia.
“I don’t want to give the administration what they are looking for. They love upheaval. They love controversy,” Scott said last month.
Scott’s comparatively subdued response reflects the fine line he has walked since Trump won the presidency. On one hand, Scott may fear that directly criticizing Trump would give the volatile president a reason to train his ire on the Green Mountain State. On the other hand, if Scott appears too deferential, he risks angering a large swath of voters who revile the president and are deeply unnerved by his return to office. Trump won just 31 percent of the Vermont vote in November, while Scott won a fifth term with 73 percent of the vote.
“I think he is in a difficult spot,” Rep. Jim Harrison (R-Chittenden) said. “What can he do to tell Vermonters that he’s protecting them?”
Starmer argues that the rising tide of anti-Trump activism in the state underscores just how out of step Scott has fallen with most residents, including many who voted for him. Last week, she sent a letter urging the governor to hold an in-person town hall meeting to let Vermonters hear how he plans to protect them from the cavalcade of threats streaming from Washington, D.C.
“You did an admirable job of informing Vermonters during Covid,” she wrote. “We have reached another emergency situation, and we need your assurance that you will protect the rights of Vermonters and protect the Vermont Constitution.”
Scott, who holds weekly press conferences, told reporters that he had no immediate plans to hold a town hall.
“I don’t believe that creating more anxiety across the board and trying to answer questions we have no answers to would be in the best interests of Vermonters at this point,” Scott said.
His administration’s job is to “distinguish between rhetoric and reality” when it comes to information coming out of Washington, Scott said. “We cannot chase every single issue that comes our way over the next four years, because it seems to change on a daily basis.”
His team is focused on gathering facts in a deliberate way and responding with practical solutions once it can assess the actual impact of changes in federal policy or budgets, he said. For instance, he recently convened a task force to examine the potential effect of the tariffs Trump has recently implemented. Canada is Vermont’s largest trading partner.
“When it becomes real and it’s something that doesn’t work for Vermont, we’ll push back,” he said. “If it’s something that benefits Vermont, we’ll be there at the table to help foster it along.”
While Scott hasn’t always been Trump’s sharpest critic, he has been one of his most steadfast. In 2016, he said he couldn’t support someone who “exploits fear for political gain.” Scott told reporters that he voted for former president Joe Biden in 2020 and former vice president Kamala Harris in 2024. Scott was also the first Republican governor to call for Trump to resign after the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
Scott has not been completely silent since Trump won a second term. He says he supports Vermont’s decision to stand by its policy of allowing trans athletes to participate in sports, despite a Trump-ordered prohibition on the practice. And Scott said the mass firing of federal workers “doesn’t seem like the right approach, from my standpoint.”
But even when he expresses disagreement with Trump, Scott has repeatedly stressed his preference for finding ways to work with the administration whenever possible. “I just see this being a long four years if we’re going to set this up for having so much controversy,” he said.
That even-keeled approach may have worked before Trump’s flurry of executive orders, Starmer said. But the governor can no longer dismiss Trump’s aggressive rollout of the Project 2025 agenda as idle rhetoric, she said.
“It’s not just a tweet anymore,” she said.
There are now 17 groups in Vermont affiliated with Indivisible, a nationwide movement whose mission is “to elect progressive leaders, rebuild our democracy, and defeat the Trump agenda.”
Heather Wood, also of Waterbury, is a member of Starmer’s group. She noted that Trump’s policies are directly affecting Vermonters. Scott’s failure to forcefully address the matter is as if the governor ignored one of the recent floods to hit Vermont, she said.
Putney resident Laura Chapman circulated a resolution on social media calling on Scott to guard against “federal overreach”; at least eight communities expressed support for a version of the measure at last week’s Town Meeting Day.
The governor needs to do a better job reassuring fearful residents, she said.
“I feel like what I’ve heard from him has not been very clear on how he will protect Vermonters from the chaos we’re seeing,” said Chapman, who works at a Brattleboro social services agency heavily dependent on Medicaid.
While Scott says it is premature to convene town halls, Vermont Treasurer Mike Pieciak is holding two on Saturday, March 15. The events in Brattleboro and South Burlington are meant to outline the state’s response to federal policy changes and give Vermonters a forum to express their concerns.
Pieciak, who is widely seen as a future Democratic candidate for governor, also attended an event in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday with other state treasurers to decry the impacts of possible cuts to Medicaid.
Scott’s already had some face time with the president. Last month, he attended a luncheon of the National Governors Association in D.C., where he shook hands with Trump.
The normally staid event had a viral moment when Trump threatened Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, for her state’s policy of allowing trans athletes to play on girls’ sports teams.
After Trump told Mills she had “better comply” with the administration’s wishes, Mills replied, “See you in court.”
Scott later told Vermont reporters that Trump’s exchange with Mills, a former attorney general, was “a little awkward” and struck him as unnecessary. He would not have responded that way, Scott noted.
“He’s our president, and we have to respect that,” Scott said. “I respect that.”
Soon after the event, former lieutenant governor David Zuckerman took to social media to needle the governor, noting that Scott “could have stood up and said something but surprise! Silence.”
Scott’s approach of “staying below the radar” may seem like a shrewd way to avoid calling attention to his state. Vermont, after all, is heavily dependent on federal dollars and programs, from Medicaid to funding for clean water.
But history has shown that remaining silent in an effort to “appease authoritarians” does not end well, Zuckerman told Seven Days.
“The bottom line is there is a time and place to stand up on the right side of history, and if this isn’t it, I don’t know what is,” Zuckerman said.
Scott alone may have little influence with Trump, but if he joined forces with other Republican governors, they could collectively wield significant influence with lawmakers, Zuckerman argued.
Harrison agreed. He recalled that in 2017 a similar effort by Trump to slash Medicaid died in part because of pushback from governors.
“It was Republican governors that said, ‘Hey, you’re gonna really bring harm to constituents in our states,'” Harrison recalled.
“His job is to be the governor of Vermont, not to take a bite out of a crazy guy who happens to be president.” Howard Dean
Howard Dean, a Democrat who served five terms as Vermont governor, said some Republican governors may hold such sway, but Scott isn’t one of them.
“What leverage do you think [Scott], as the governor of a state of 600,000 people, has over this guy who’s lost his mind?” Dean said, referring to Trump.
Publicly challenging Trump or trading barbs with him is neither Scott’s job nor likely to accomplish anything positive for Vermonters, Dean said. Scott has plenty else on his plate, his predecessor noted. Constituents should judge him for local issues on which he’s failing to deliver.
“His job is to be the governor of Vermont,” Dean said, “not to take a bite out of a crazy guy who happens to be president.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Lying Low | Gov. Phil Scott’s subdued response to President Donald Trump is frustrating some Vermonters”
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This article appears in Mar 12-18, 2025.
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