Wes Moore talks about why he refuses to call President Trump a ‘racist’
Maryland Governor Wes Moore explained why he refused to call President Trump a “racist” when asked directly about him during a recent town hall.
WASHINGTON – Maryland Governor Wes Moore says he has no intention of getting combative with President Donald Trump.
Nor does he think attacking the incumbent president is the best way to win back swing voters who failed Republican politicians in the last presidential election.
But despite this, Army veterans find themselves at the center of high-profile skirmishes with President Trump and are choosing to embrace the fight.
“I don’t want to get combative with the president of the United States, but I also don’t want to see my own people attacked,” Moore told USA TODAY in an interview. “I fight for my people. I protect my people. And when I see someone attack my people, I have no problem fighting back.”
Moore, the nation’s only black governor and one of the Democratic Party’s most up-and-coming politicians, spent the first year of Trump’s second term trying to avoid conflict with the president as much as possible. He says he didn’t see the point.
But then the president excluded Moore from a historic bipartisan meeting of all but two U.S. governors at the White House, blaming him for one of the largest sewage spills in U.S. history.
Moore governs one of the bluest states in the country. He won the gubernatorial election by more than 30 points over his Republican opponent. Maryland has a Democratic triumvirate, with a majority in both chambers of the state legislature and control of the state’s highest executive office. He is expected to be on the ballot again this fall and is expected to win re-election easily.
But his confrontation with Trump is decidedly less intense than some of his peers, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is set to retire early next year, and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is running for a third term. Mr. Newsom has dedicated his news organization’s X account to trolling the sitting president, while Mr. Pritzker has aggressively criticized Mr. Trump.
Moore, a political novice who had never run for Maryland governor before taking office in 2022, has refrained from making big statements and has been more cautious in his statements.
He said earlier this month that he “hasn’t forgotten” that he was the only black governor in the nation and was excluded from the bipartisan governor’s dinner, which is traditionally held at the White House. But when asked directly during a recent town hall on CBS News if he thought Trump was racist, he declined to say he was, and said the president’s actions speak for themselves.
“I can’t speak for the president’s mind. I can’t speak for what the president is feeling or saying behind closed doors when I or others aren’t around. But I can speak about his actions, and I can speak about how his actions have affected members of our community, members of the Black community,” Moore told USA TODAY.
She accused President Trump of cutting funding to historically black colleges and universities (known as HBCUs), giving them one-time grants after his administration cut other programs, causing unemployment rates for black women to skyrocket, and supporting the book ban.
“All I can say is his actions speak much louder than he really understands or realizes. Does he really support every community in this country, or does he support his friends who he’s giving tax breaks to, and the rest of the population just ends up shouldering the rest of his policies,” Moore said.
Later in the interview, in response to a question about what Trump has done to black Americans, Moore brought up a widely criticized video that Trump posted on social media depicting former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as monkeys.
“This is a question for President Trump, and I can’t give you a straight answer,” Moore said. “I just saw what I saw during Black History Month.”
The White House initially defended the video, but President Trump chose to remove it after Republicans, including South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, condemned it as racist.
Moore criticizes Trump on Obama’s video about black unemployment rate
At the time of the Feb. 18 interview with Moore, Trump was hosting a reception honoring Black Americans at the White House. At the event, he honored the late civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who died this week, and awarded first-term Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian decoration.
“I’m glad he’s hosting an event now. I hope he’s willing to talk about why he thought it was appropriate and funny to make a video calling out the former First Family that painted them like apes. I hope he’s willing to talk about the policies he’s put in place since becoming president of the United States that have caused black unemployment in this country to skyrocket,” Moore shot back. “I want to hear what he thinks black history is worth celebrating and uplifting, because I don’t think his policies show that.”
It was Moore’s most in-depth criticism of Trump, who is not on the ballot this fall and has a limited term as president.
Moore said attacking Trump is not the best way for Democrats to bring back to the party centrist Americans who have left the party in recent years.
Wes Moore talks about being excluded from President Trump’s meeting with governors
Maryland Governor Wes Moore said the NGA would not attend the White House Governor’s Breakfast after some governors were excluded.
“I won’t, because I don’t think this is about President Trump. This is the people we represent. I can’t speak for what other people, governors and other places are doing, but that’s never what I want,” Moore said. “When we look at policy, it often means pushing back against the current administration,” he added.
He cited the Republican food aid cuts in the president’s Tax Cuts and Spending Act and the administration’s cuts to federal workers as examples of times when he felt he had to stand up to Trump to protect his state’s residents.
“But I don’t want to spend all my time going backwards. I want to spend my time actually moving forward and devising new ways to show the country that Maryland shows there is a better way, that there is a better way,” he said.
His advice to Democrats: Look beyond the base.
So how does he think Democrats can apply that approach countywide?
“Well, I think we really need to show up and take care of it,” he said.
Democrats can’t fall into a pattern of only visiting areas where they can strengthen their base, Moore explained.
“They want to go to the same places with the same lines and talk to the same people and bring people over. I don’t think that’s the answer,” he said. “I think the answer is you go everywhere and talk to everyone and it’s up to them whether they vote for you or not. But they can never say you didn’t try.”
Moore has said he plans to fight for re-election as Maryland’s governor this fall and is not considering a potential run for president.
“I’ve been in this industry for 20, 25 years, and I’m not one of those people who moves from job to job and thinks about what I want to do next,” Moore said. “I’m the first person in my life to run for office because I wanted to accomplish something for the state, and I think there’s more work to do.”
