Governor Wes Moore tells “Meet the Press” that while federal support for law enforcement is welcome, deploying the National Guard is “performative” and unnecessary, pointing to Baltimore’s declining crime rates.
In a Sunday interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Maryland Governor Wes Moore addressed the issue of federal intervention in cities with high crime rates, stating that he would “absolutely accept the offer for federal support” for law enforcement, but not the deployment of the National Guard.
Speaking with moderator Kristen Welker, Governor Moore was asked about his decision to reject the president’s offer to send in the National Guard to Baltimore, which has one of the nation’s highest murder rates. Moore pointed to the state’s own investments in public safety and a recent decrease in violent crime.
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“The work is happening,” Moore said, citing “historic investments in local law enforcement, historic investments in technologies.”
He claimed that during the same period as a recent federal surge in Washington, D.C., assaults with a deadly weapon decreased by 10% in Baltimore, while they increased by 8% in D.C. He added that Baltimore has seen similar drops in other major crime indicators, like homicide and carjacking, “and we didn’t mobilize the National Guard for it.”
Moore also criticized the president’s proposed budget, which he claimed would cut funding for the FBI and ATF, as well as $30 million for violence prevention programs in Baltimore.
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When asked about the president’s social media post threatening to mobilize troops to Chicago, Moore called the message “a threat,” “embarrassing,” and “performative.”
He challenged the effectiveness of National Guard deployments, questioning their role in seizing illegal guns or conducting drug busts. He contrasted these with the documented tasks performed by the National Guard in D.C., such as “744 cubic yards of mulch spread” and “270 feet of fence painted.”
Moore concluded by reiterating that Baltimore’s crime numbers have dropped by a similar percentage to D.C.’s during the federal surge, and that the city did so without asking “citizen soldiers to give up their lives” or costing taxpayers “well over a million dollars a day so we could have fences painted.”
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