Editor’s note: David Ige was Hawaiʻi governor the first time Donald Trump was elected president. In an interview edited for length and clarity, Ige talks about the challenges he faced and why he probably got off lucky compared to his successor.

With Donald Trump back in the White House, you must be thinking back to early 2017. You didn’t waste any time standing up to the administration after the announcement of the travel ban on on Muslims. When your attorney general, Doug Chin, filed suit, a federal judge here temporarily halted the ban, and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions famously said, “I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States.”

Why did you take that early step against the administration?

We were watching those issues that directly impacted residents and we were prepared to take action through the court, because we knew that would be the only way to try to stop the activity that we felt was illegal.

I’ve always believed that establishing personal contact is very important to benefit the state and we try and cooperate to the extent that it makes sense. But clearly when they tried to implement the Muslim ban, it did impact residents here in the state, and we took prompt action. I do think that we need to be prepared to do that again.

In the first term, there was a more traditional vetting process for the Cabinet. So although there were several billionaires in his first Cabinet, I think the majority of Cabinet people had some competency in the area that they would be responsible for. (Defense Secretary) Jim Mattis and (Chief of Staff) John Kelly both were very solid, competent people. They understood the job of the president and all of its responsibilities.

I think most importantly though, they were loyal to the country first. Obviously they knew that they worked for the president, but they worked really hard to make sure that he followed the law.

The big difference with Trump 2.0 is that the Cabinet is really 100% loyalist. They’re willing to do whatever they’re directed to do, whether it’s legal or not. Many of them are not competent.

So it’s just a real different environment now. It’ll be a very challenging time.

Before we go further into the difference this time around, let me time travel with you back to 2017 for just a couple of more minutes. When you took this initial legal action against the travel ban, were you worried that Trump might somehow try to penalize Hawaiʻi because of this lawsuit and the others that Hawaiʻi joined with other states in filing?

I knew that there may be a possibility, but obviously this had direct impact on some residents in Hawaiʻi, and I was committed to do the right thing in the right way. Filing our grievance in federal court when we believe that the action was not legal or proper, I thought, was an appropriate action.

Yes, I was aware that he might retaliate in some way, but you know clearly you need to be able to stand up for your state and its citizens in a respectful way and legal way, and I thought that that was the best thing that we could do at that time.

Regardless of the lawsuits, there was talk back then of the possibility of a cutback in federal funds for Hawaiʻi. What do you recall about trying to prepare for that?

One of the things that I asked all of my Cabinet people to do was to get engaged and stay connected with their federal counterparts so that at least on a working level we would have person-to-person connections so that we could at least have conversations about things that may happen that would impact the state of Hawaii.

Ultimately, was there a cutback in federal funds for Hawaiʻi in the first Trump administration?

There were a few selected cutbacks, but I don’t recall anything that was was specific to Hawaii. As I said, at least we could interact with the first Cabinet. You could have a conversation about the fact that some cutback was not legal, and there was an effort to try to stay within the bounds of the law.

In some of the emergency declarations and federal funding that followed, I heard Trump say, “We should just really support red states and not blue states.”

But the people in FEMA knew that they couldn’t do that, or at least they believed that they had to provide support for all states equally. And I would have to say, when it came to disasters and emergency response, the Trump administration responded very quickly in the first term.

I mean, obviously we’re working the system. We’re talking with the FEMA people, we inform them that we are going to make this presidential request, we’re working all the way up the chain of command to make sure that the working people are aware that the request is coming, and they can prepare the White House to respond.

Regarding what’s different this time around, you made some good points already in terms of the Cabinet being entirely different. What else about this time strikes you as different than eight years ago?

Well, clearly Trump feels emboldened and believes he has a mandate from his supporters to do what he promised to do, regardless of whether it’s legal or not. So I do think that that’s a huge change. I mean, there’s no filter now.

It’s very clear, you just look at the flip-flops on tariffs, for example, he really doesn’t have a strong policy basis. I’m not certain that he checks with anybody, but you know, there’s no real plan or program other than he’s going to establish tariffs, and he’s announced them and then delayed them, and then announced others and delayed them.

It definitely is a very chaotic time, and so you can’t react to everything he says, but you need to be prepared to act in court to challenge the things that really impact us, impact Hawaii directly.

Your successor, Gov. Josh Green, has also taken a high profile stand against the new administration in general and specifically in going to D.C. to speak out against the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to be health secretary. How did you feel about that?

It’s certainly not something I would have done. Because I didn’t believe that he could be successful.

I just believe that it’s important to pick and choose your battles. And clearly, the Republicans had won a majority in the Senate, and they were committed to giving Trump his Cabinet picks and so I didn’t think that (Green) would have been able to be successful in any meaningful way.

Do you see a risk this time of Hawaiʻi perhaps being one of the blue states in the bull’s eye of the administration?

I do believe that, yes, this time, because the Cabinet is entirely different, and there’s nobody around Trump to challenge or question anything. He is clearly intentioned to take it out on his enemies. He said that during the campaign.

The only way for us to respond is to challenge the action in court, ask for an injunction to stop or slow down the actions that impact the state.

You already mentioned the one example of FEMA from last time around. Can you think of another example of an area where, if the president were so disposed, he could treat blue states differently than red states?

I would be concerned with Medicaid. Trump had said he’s not going to touch Medicaid and Social Security, and then the House passes a budget continuing resolution that cuts $800 billion out of Medicaid. It’s something you have to watch and be prepared for.

Even though Trump has said that he’s not going to touch Medicaid, it’s obvious that that’s on the chopping block. And you know, there could be significant cutbacks that we need to be prepared for.

One of the things I think I would be looking at is that there are some red states that ended up doing the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. And I certainly would get engaged with those states — Idaho, Nebraska, South Dakota. Trump is political 100% and clearly those states and those governors would have an opportunity to discuss whatever is going to happen with Trump in a different way than Josh or a blue state would have, and the fact that they decided to do Medicaid expansion, they know what a tremendous benefit it is to ensuring that people have access to health care.

Clearly, I think you have to look for your allies and be smart about trying to stay connected to red states that have programs that are important to Hawaiʻi and work with them to make sure that the impacts of the cuts can be expressed and hopefully prevent them from happening.

We have a lot of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients in Hawaiʻi. Should they be concerned?

Yeah. The continuing resolution just deals with appropriations, right? It’s just money. Any changes to the law have to go through a different path. I think the concern that we need to be aware of is really the funding level could drop significantly.

So I do believe all of those kinds of programs are definitely in the crosshairs of being cut, and so we need to be monitoring those things, and like I said, ready to take legal action to stop that change from occurring.

Of course, the Hawaiʻi Department of Education currently gets a gets a pretty good chunk of federal money — do you have concern there as well?

Yes, most definitely. Like I said, and I think everybody recognizes to actually change statutory requirements will be difficult or more involved, but his Cabinet will do what he says.

And so certainly the funding levels, they might not be able to legally eliminate programs from the Department of Education, but I can see them trying to stop funding or withhold monies, and that’s the kind of thing that we need to be prepared to fight them in court.

What else worries you about the Trump administration this time around?

There’s a lot of things that that are important, just in terms of weather, for example. NOAA and the National Weather Service are definitely part of the focus in downsizing and we rely on the weather reports and hurricane warnings.

That’s just such a fundamentally important function of NOAA and the federal government, that certainly appears to be on the chopping block. And the FAA and air traffic control.

Does all this make you glad you aren’t governor anymore? Or do you wish there was no such thing as term limits and you could have run again in 2022?

Well, I don’t really like to contemplate things that are not real. We do have a term limit and I was honored to be able to serve for eight years, the full limit of a governorship.

And I’m proud of the things that we were able to do.

When you left office, despite having gone through the pandemic, Hawaiʻi had the biggest budget surplus in its history, a cash balance of about $2.6 billion, in addition to a big rainy day fund. Within a year, most of it was gone. What happened?

That’s unfortunate, but they spent a lot of money.

There were a lot of needs, and certainly there were important needs. I know a lot of that went into housing. And then, there was the Lahaina fire. It was a horrific tragedy, and clearly it became a priority to provide the best response for those impacted.

There’s all that, and of course economic forecasts can change, but wasn’t it also to some extent that the fiscal conservatism that you brought to the office wasn’t practiced as much when you left?

Yeah, I mean, that’s part of it. But every governor has their priorities.

It was great to be able to leave the state in such a strong financial position that we were able to respond in a good way for the people impacted by the fire.

How do you feel about the massive income tax cuts that were approved last legislative session? In retrospect, with all of the federal economic uncertainty, do you think they may have overdone it?

I definitely am concerned. I think there will need to be a right-sizing of government again, and it will be very difficult, I guess the tax cuts are implemented over eight years, so the next eight years will be a challenge financially because of the reduction in income taxes.

I think you’re starting to see the first couple of financial forecasts by the Council on Revenues were way too optimistic and didn’t reflect the tax cuts. I do think that as they implement it, and every quarter as we go forward, we’ll get a better sense of what the income tax revenue will be. And I do think that the fiscal constraints will become more and more difficult over the next several years.

Overall, are you more hopeful or pessimistic about the state of the State of Hawaiʻi?

Well, I think it’s a big concern with the Trump administration. I mean all of the economic uncertainty that is reverberating through the economy. The volatility of the stock market. The on-again, off-again, tariffs certainly create uncertainty. Many consumers are seeing the economic uncertainty and they’re going to decide to cancel vacations and travel and purchases that I think will significantly impact the economy.

And so I do think that that the economy will be very tough over the next three and four years, and we still haven’t fully recovered travel from Japan after the pandemic. I think that’s in large part due to the strength of the dollar against the yen, even though the yen has strengthened and the value of the dollar has dropped. It’s still higher than it was in the past, and so travel from Japan is still slow to recover.

Canada became the most important international market as Japan kind of went down and now with all this tariff talk, Canadians are being awakened to some anti-U.S. sentiment. That’s a big concern.

Hawaiʻi might be viewed a little differently than the rest of the United States, but I am concerned that the tariff discussion really does begin to impact Canadian travel. Our two most important international markets are not going to be strong, and so it certainly will be a challenge in the next several years.