Maryland Gov. Wes Moore defended his rhetoric in opposition to President Donald Trump over crime in his residence metropolis of Baltimore amid an escalating feud between the 2 leaders.
“I’ve little interest in combating with the president, however I’ve an curiosity in combating for my communities and combating for our folks,” Moore advised ABC Information’ “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz in an interview that aired Sunday.
Earlier this month, Trump supplied to ship the Nationwide Guard into different cities throughout the nation after his regulation enforcement surge into Washington, D.C., calling Baltimore “to this point gone.” Moore responded by formally inviting the president to hitch him and Baltimore officers on a public security stroll.
After the 2 continued to commerce barbs on social media, Trump rebuked the invitation and renewed his risk to ship the Nationwide Guard into Baltimore, calling the town a “hellhole” within the Oval Workplace on Tuesday.
ABC Information’ Martha Raddatz walks the streets of Baltimore with Maryland Governor Wes Moore.
Julia Cherner/ABC Information
“Wes Moore was telling me he desires — ‘I need to stroll with the president.’ Effectively, I stated, ‘I need to stroll with you, too, sometime. However first you have to clear up your crime,” Trump stated.
Baltimore, like a lot of the U.S., has seen a drop in crime and homicides lately, however stays one of many nation’s most violent cities. It had the fifth highest fee of violent crime and fourth highest homicide fee per capita in cities with no less than 100,000 folks final yr, in line with current FBI information.
Whereas Moore acknowledged there’s nonetheless “work to do there,” he touted the progress the state has made and referred to as out the president’s feedback.
ABC Information’ Martha Raddatz sits down with Maryland Governor Wes Moore in Baltimore.
Julia Cherner/ABC Information
“It might simply be nice if we may have a president of america to truly perceive that this is among the nice American turnaround tales that is occurring proper now, and we might love the assistance to have the ability to proceed to try this work as an alternative of this — smug criticism and cynicism that he continues to introduce into the dialog,” Moore stated.
Moore stated whereas he “would love extra federal assist,” he referred to as the Nationwide Guard deployment in Washington, D.C. “performative.”
Raddatz pressed Moore on the discount in crime in Washington because the elevated federal presence that D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser cited this week.
“You’ve got heard Mayor Bowser say [they’ve seen an] 87% discount in carjackings, robberies lower by half. Why would not you need that right here, if that’s really serving to?” Raddatz requested.
ABC Information’ Martha Raddatz speaks with Maryland Governor Wes Moore in Baltimore.
Nathan Luna/ABC Information
“If the president of america have been to have a severe dialog with me and say, what can we do — notably whenever you have a look at the price of the Nationwide Guard of properly over 1,000,000 {dollars} a day?” Moore responded. “I might inform him issues like, we want to ensure we’re growing funding for native regulation enforcement.”
“Asking me to deploy my Nationwide Guard, people who find themselves not skilled for municipal policing, is simply not a severe method,” Moore added.
In posts on his social media platform, Trump has additionally resurfaced an issue over Moore’s army document. The New York Instances reported last year that Moore falsely claimed to have been awarded a Bronze Star in a 2006 White Home utility. Throughout his 2022 marketing campaign, clips of Moore being launched as a Bronze Star recipient and never correcting the interviewers in 2008 and 2010 surfaced.
Moore had been advisable for the medal however didn’t obtain it till final yr and has called it an “trustworthy mistake.”
Governor Wes Moore formally receives the Bronze Star Medal in a ceremony on the Governors Mansion in Annapolis, Maryland, on Dec. 20, 2024. Lt. Normal Michael Fenzel, United States Coordinator to Israel and Palestinian Authority pins the bronze star medal on Governor Wes Moore.
Marvin Joseph/The Washington Publish through Getty Photographs, FILE
In response, Moore referred to as Trump “President Bone Spurs” in a post on X, referencing Trump’s medical deferment from the Vietnam draft.
Moore stated about his put up: “When the president desires to assault my army document as somebody who’s really a adorned fight veteran, as somebody who really has served abroad, as somebody who has defended the nation, I simply suppose that if the president desires to have an actual debate about public service and concerning the sacrifice for this nation, he ought to actually sit that debate out. I am not the one he desires to have it with.”
Requested why he put the Bronze Star on his 2006 utility, Moore advised Raddatz he “did not give it some thought” since his commanding officers advised him to incorporate it.
“I feel it is fairly frequent information or frequent perception that when your, when your commanding officers, and your superior officers let you know, ‘Hear, we put you in, and we have gone via every little thing, in order you are going via your utility, embrace it.'” Moore stated. “I included it, and I did not give it some thought.”
Pressed on why he did not appropriate the interviewers once they wrongly launched him, Moore stated “Even on the time of these interviews, it wasn’t one thing I thought of.”
“Now I am grateful that the army, after they discovered that the paperwork was misplaced and did not course of [it], that they got here again and awarded me the Bronze Star,” Moore stated. “So I do have a Bronze Star that I earned in Afghanistan and a Fight Motion Badge that I earned in Afghanistan. So I am pleased with that, however that is not why I served.”
“However do you remorse not correcting whenever you have been launched that method?” Raddatz requested.
“I do not remorse not going again and constantly wanting over my service data. I do not. I am grateful for the service I did. I am grateful for the truth that I had the chance to guide troopers in fight, what a small fraction of this folks of this nation will ever perceive,” Moore responded.
Governor of Maryland Wes Moore speaks onstage through the 2025 ESSENCE Competition Of Tradition at Ernest N. Morial Conference Middle in New Orleans.
Arturo Holmes/Getty Photographs for ESSENCE, FILE
Moore’s nationwide profile has risen from his public conflict with the president and a few have drawn comparisons to California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s brash model.
Requested how Democrats ought to method taking over Trump, Moore stated the social gathering ought to “transfer with the sort of aggression that’s obligatory.”
“The Democrats haven’t got a messaging drawback, there is a outcomes drawback. The Democrats need to ship outcomes and cease being the social gathering of no and sluggish and begin being the social gathering of sure and now as a result of the frustration that folks have, it’s actual,” Moore stated.
Whereas hypothesis mounts about his future presidential ambitions, Moore stated he is centered on delivering outcomes for Marylanders.
“You have to deal with defending your folks proper now and the problems that the folks in our states are going through, and that is the place I do know my focus is,” Moore stated.
