Transcription: governor wes moore in

The next is the transcription of an interview with the governor of Maryland, Wes Moore, which was broadcast on “Fac The Nation with Margaret Brennan” on August 24, 2025.

Margaret Brennan: Good morning and welcome to ‘Face the Nation’. It is quiet here in Washington when we air this morning, but the debate is heating on the call of President Trump of almost 2300 national guards, along with Federal ICE agents, the ATF, the drug control agency, the FBI and others, to patrol the streets of the city next to the DC police forces. And we are seeing another instance of Trump’s expansion of the reach of the federal government, this time when it comes to the control of the police in the local communities. Will we see images like these in other US cities in the future? Well, one of the places that President Trump has mentioned is that he will need help to combat crime is close to Baltimore, and join us at this time is Maryland’s Democratic governor, Wes Moore. Thanks for being here.

Government. Wes Moore: Thank you very much for inviting me.

Margaret Brennan: Then they are here in DC, there are guards of six different states on the street. The mission is, quotes, ‘beautification, duty and support’. The Secretary of Defense authorized them to carry Rifles M4 and M17, but to date, we have not been able to locate anyone armed within the National Guard in the streets of DC. Why, however, do you oppose this deployment?

Government. Moore: Well, there are many reasons. You know one, it is not sustainable. You cannot continue with this type of rate of operations, particularly when it is when it costs more than one million dollars per day to do this. The second is not scalable. You will not be able to do this in all important American cities, particularly when many of the cities that have the highest crime rates are the places that have really deployed their national guards to Washington, DC. So, who will work in your cities do? The third is unconstitutional. It is a direct violation of the tenth amendment, and for a part that talks about state rights, it is surprising how they are having such a large government approach in the way they carry out public security. The fourth reason is because it is deeply disrespectful for the members of the National Guard. As someone who really deployed abroad and served my country in combat, asking these men and women to do a job for which they are not trained is simply deeply disrespectful. So, when we are thinking of all these lasting factors, when we are thinking about the fact that it serves as a distraction of the fact that the disastrous economic policies of the president are making everything more expensive for everyday Americans, it is difficult to make the lives of everyday Americans, there are a multitude of reasons why I am against this, and I will not authorize the Maryland National Guard to be used for this.

Margaret Brennan: Well, the National Guard says that these troops will be trained and deputies by federal sheriffs. So this will be different from the military commitment rules

Government. Moore: But it is contrary to each training bit we receive. When … I joined the military, we join a clear intention to fight and win the wars of our nation. The members of our National Guard are trained to be able to address things as emergency situations, situations in which it needs, where it needs an increase in support for traumas and disasters that are happening within individual jurisdictions. That is not this, and this is a direct deviation that the president is authorizing.

Margaret Brennan: We know that the president observes the program, and probably saw the list of guests because he is tweeting about you or completely, I suppose. He says that Governor Wes Moore of Maryland has asked in an ‘unpleasant and provocative tone that walked through the streets of Maryland with him’, and is talking about ‘Baltimore mounted in crime’. It is quite long, but he pursues your record about crime. He says it’s “bad.” He says, if you need help, will send to the troops, what is being done in the nearby DC. I mean, when we saw a few weeks ago the deployment in the streets of Los Angeles, the governor of California tried to go to court, and could not stop him. Is the reality here? Can’t you prevent the president from sending troops to Baltimore if he wants?

Government. Moore: The year before becoming the governor, in 2022, Baltimore was averaging almost a homicide per day, and I entered and said that I refuse to be a governor who only offers thoughts and prayers to this situation. So we said that we are really going to work in association with Mayor Scott, work in association with local elected officials, work in association with the Local Police. We made the greatest investments in the application of local law in the history of our State. More than $ 50 million by going only to the city of Baltimore,

Margaret Brennan: That came from federal money.

Government. Moore: No, that came from federal and state money, and also Maryland became one of the only states that actually helps finance the United States lawyer out of the balance, taking many of those crimes of weapons and actually turning them into federal positions. And the results have been, they have been incredibly encouraging, where Maryland had among the fastest falls in the violent crime of any place in the United States in the last two and a half years. The homicide rate in Maryland has decreased more than 20% since I have been the governor, and the last time the homicide rate was so low in the city of Baltimore, it was not yet born. And so, the reason I have asked the president to come and join us is because he seems to live in this wonderful ignorance. This: these tropes, in these astré tactics of the 1980s. And you know, last week I was in Baltimore, and I was with a group called ‘oursels ours’, which is a violence intervention group. And they say we are all we have, we are all we need. And so it is exactly how people feel in this community. Because while the president spends his time from the Oval office, blows and attacks with us, there are people in the field who do the work that know what supports would really work to continue knocking down the crime, but he is falling into deaf ears of the president of the United States.

Margaret Brennan: You are talking about the positive trend line. The president points out the FBI statistics, which shows that Baltimore is the fifth majority of violent crime in a per capita base. Fourth highest murder rate. To its point, the city of Memphis is also on that list, and the governor of Tennessee sent to those national guard troops to this city, not to the streets of Memphis,

Government. Moore: -And we know we have a job to do. We know that if a person does not feel safe in his neighborhood, that’s too much. But we also know what tactics really work and what tactics are just theatics.

Margaret Brennan: But the mayor in Baltimore has just said that he wants federal help: he does not want national guard troops, however, he says he wants FBI, DEA and ATF agents, do you need more federal help in surveillance if your mayor believes it does?

Government. Moore: Oh absolutely. And we need the president to stop reducing the funds. Because if you observe the president’s budget, it actually reduces funds for violence intervention groups. It cuts funds for the FBI and ATF offices that support local jurisdictions such as Baltimore. That does nothing about things like ghost guns and these extended glock clips that allow these glocks to become essentially automatic weapons. Those are really real and tangible things that the president of the United States could do and where it could put capital to make our communities safer.

Margaret Brennan: Then, you are a Democrat that President Trump also says, possibly a presidential candidate. He talked about you the other day.

Government. Moore: Yes.

Margaret Brennan: He spent a lot of time talking about you.

Government. Moore: I’ve been in your mind many times.

Margaret Brennan: You are spending time talking about crime. Is this something that, as a Democrat, do you think the Democratic Party must be more vocal and muscular when you run for a position? Because I hear you do that. It is a very big change from 2020 when you know the idea was to defuse the police.

Government. Moore: Absolutely. And yet, the president spends all his time talking about me. I spend my time talking about the people I serve. And yes, I think we have to be able to address the issue of crime. I entered, and I have existed in neighborhoods and communities that have been chronically neglected. And I remember one of the first things that happened in our first months later, I had to visit the shock trauma inside Baltimore, because Baltimore had one of the largest mass shootings in its history. And I visited a young man, a teenager, who had just finished surgery and shot him one of his testicles, and was talking about, how would he become a father? And I said, at that time, I refuse to continue doing this and not put the appropriate resources instead, and not to be able to focus real on making our communities safer. And that is why it is so frustrating when we listen to the president of the United States something that is purely performative, without focusing on these communities and these neighborhoods that believe that progress is possible and that they are willing to work and we are simply asking that Washington can recognize and support it.

Margaret Brennan: He says you are not ‘presidential wood’ at all. I imagine that you do not agree with that evaluation.

Government. Moore: Yes, I have been very clear. I did not postulate for president

Margaret Brennan: Right now.

Government. Moore: But it is interesting that, but it is interesting that the president seems more concerned about my future than for the future of the American people, and that is why I ask him to keep his focus. Grant in the things that really matter at this time, which is the fact that their economic policies are raising prices in everything, from electronics to the clothes we wear, to the food we eat. Talk about the fact that it has immigration policies that are eliminating tens of thousands of jobs in the state of Maryland. Talk about the fact that you are about to kick veterans and the elderly of medical care. Don’t worry about my future. Worry about yours.

Margaret Brennan: I want to ask, he mentioned immigration, one of the residents of his state, Kilmar Abrego García, was released from preventive detention on Friday. But the Trump administration has instructed him to inform ICE within 72 hours for deportation to Uganda. It is originally from El Salvador. He was mistakenly deported to that prison in El Salvador and then returned to the US. This is a federal policy. This is not a state policy. But I wonder, is there anything you are doing to help your family stay together?

Government. Moore: And what we know is that, you know, and everything we are asking for, is that the Constitution is still in this. The Constitution is very clear about how we deal with this type of problem, and when we look at what happened in this situation, it is the president who manipulates the fact that we have a very broken immigration system within this country. But instead of doing the work that requires to solve it, really working In Congress to create an integral immigration bill, the president is using to exploit the break. And I am very clear that there is no higher priority for me than public security.

Margaret Brennan: you want me to face one day in court, in other words.

Government. Moore: Absolutely. I want due process. I simply want a court and a judge to decide what the future destiny of this case will be and all cases like this, and not simply the president of the United States or the Secretary of National Security who is trying to be a judge, jury, fiscal and executioner within this case. I believe in the Constitution, and I think that is what we must continue for this case.

Margaret Brennan: I want to ask you about something your party is playing with here, redistribution of districts or Gerrymandering, as some people know it. You said you don’t like talking about that, but all options are on the table when it comes to your state. There is only one seat here that is actually republican, and it is a seat in the hands of the representative Andy Harris. Are you considering trying to draw lines in Maryland?

Government. Moore: Yes. When I say that all options are on the table, all options are on the table.

Margaret Brennan: Are you actively looking at it now?

Government. Moore: Yes, because and I think, and I think we have to …

Margaret Brennan: Are you?

Government. Moore: Yes, and I think, and I think we have to do it, because I think what happened is that this is what people hate about politics in the first place, the fact that the president of the United States is very similar to what he did in Georgia, where he called a series of voter recorders and said, I need you to find me more votes. We are seeing the same now, where he is calling legislatures throughout the country and saying that I need you to find more districts of the congress.

Margaret Brennan: He is doing it. That may be different, but the Democrats redistribute this, Gavin Newsom is doing it at this time. A few years ago in New York, we saw this. This can be counterproductive. Do you really want to go this path?

Government. Moore: I want to make sure you have fair lines and fair seats, where we have no situations in which politicians choose voters, but that voters actually have the opportunity to choose their elected officials. We need to have fair maps. And we must also ensure that if the president of the United States is putting his finger on the scale to try to manipulate the elections, because he knows that his policies cannot win in an urn, then each and every one of us is seen to be able to maintain all the options on the table to ensure that the voices of the voters can be heard, and we can have maps.

Margaret Brennan: And you don’t think a district in which they represent: they have a republican representative that they are actively represented in Maryland?

Government. Moore: I think that if you look maps throughout the country, less than 10% of Congress’ seats are really competitive by nature. Less than 10%. So, if you observe the margin of average victories in our state and so many states, the margin of average victories is more than 20 to 30%, which means that we already have so many areas of Gerrymandas that we must be able to add a measure of equity in the way it is applied. And yes, all options must be on the table in the state of Maryland.

Margaret Brennan: And you are looking at it, you said.

Government. Moore: Yes, we are.

Margaret Brennan: Governor, thanks for her time this morning.

Government. Moore: Thank you very much.

Margaret Brennan: ‘Face the Nation’ will return in a minute. Stay with us.