13 Dem AGs skip Trump group photo

Thirteen Democratic attorneys general skipped a group photo after a recent meeting with President Trump.

“The Democratic attorneys general wanted to attend the Q&A and the majority opted not to participate in the photo op,” Sean Rankin, the executive director of the Democratic Attorneys General Association, confirmed to Politico Wednesday.

Politico said the 13 were among 44 state attorneys general visiting Trump at the White House Tuesday.

{mosads}The White House also took heat for incorrectly claiming 47 attorneys general had attended the meeting.

Politico said three Democratic attorneys general were mistakenly counted – Illinois’s Lisa Madigan, New York’s Eric Schneiderman and Kentucky’s Andrew Beshear.

“As we’ve seen over the past six weeks, this White House is making a lot of mistakes and not knowing who attended is just another example of that,” Rankin said.

“Attorney General Schneiderman did not attend yesterday’s meeting with President Trump and we have no idea why the White House said he did,” spokeswoman Amy Spitalnick said in a statement Wednesday. “Talk about fake news.”

Madigan skipped Tuesday’s meeting to protest Trump’s civil rights policies and Cabinet appointments, Politico said.

Schneiderman left Washington, D.C. late Monday before the meeting, it added, and Beshear was in Lexington, Ky., on Tuesday.

Andrew Beshear was helping his father Steve Beshear, the former Democratic governor of Kentucky, prepare their party’s rebuttal to Trump’s address to Congress.

The White House also mislabeled American Samoa’s Talauega Ale as the attorney general of “American Sonoma,” in the list of attendees provided.

Tuesday’s meeting was timed to coincide with the National Association of Attorneys General winter meetings in D.C.

The topics Trump discussed with attendees included ObamaCare, hate crimes, the national opioid epidemic and the president’s controversial travel ban. 

According to Politico, the 13 attorneys general who skipped the photo were California’s Xavier Becerra, Delaware’s Matthew Dunn, Iowa’s Tom Miller, Maine’s Janet Mills, Maryland’s Brian Frosh, Massachusetts’ Maura Healy, New Hampshire’s Joseph Foster, New Mexico’s Hector Balderas, North Carolina’s Josh Stein, Oregon’s Ellen Rosenblum, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, Vermont’s Thomas Donovan, and Virginia’s Mark Herring.