A day after he threatened to yank federal funds for the Key Bridge replacement and send military forces to Baltimore, President Donald Trump on Monday called Baltimore a “horrible deathbed” and said Maryland Gov. Wes Moore doesn’t “have what it takes.”
Monday’s remarks are hardly the first time Trump has criticized Baltimore — in his first term he called the city “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” — but the recent back-and-forth between the president and the governor could set the stage for more direct intervention from the federal government.
Already there are armed soldiers patrolling the streets of the nation’s capital, and Trump has repeatedly said he would like to order troops into other American cities that he perceives as particularly crime-ridden.
His administration is testing the limits of executive power and has redirected or canceled numerous congressionally approved spending for projects and agencies that don’t align with Trump’s political goals.
Moore, a veteran, criticized the deployment of National Guard members to Washington, D.C., as a supplement to local police. When Trump made the decision to do so, he mentioned Baltimore as a place that could also see federal intervention.
Last week, Moore invited Trump to Baltimore to see firsthand the progress the city has made in its efforts to reduce crime. If Trump was to decline the governor’s invitation, which he so far has, Moore instructed the president to keep Baltimore’s “name out of your mouth.”
Instead, the president’s rhetoric has amped up.
Trump revisited his threat to send in troops in a social media post Sunday morning, followed by an additional threat to withhold the congressionally approved funds to rebuild the Key Bridge. Moore responded to those threats on live television, calling the president “performative.”
Trump also called Moore a liar and made a reference to his Bronze Star. Moore wrongly claimed he had received a Bronze Star for his military service for years, but the paperwork to award him the honor had never been submitted. He has since been awarded one.
Moore, in response, called Trump a liar in reference to a diagnosis of bone spurs that led to Trump’s medical exemption from the military during the Vietnam War.
Speaking to reporters Monday in the Oval Office, Trump criticized Baltimore and Moore, then lied about a moment — captured on video — when the two men met briefly at last year’s Army-Navy football game in Landover.
Trump claimed that Moore told him he was “the greatest president of my lifetime.”
While Moore was chummy with Trump, saying he’d be sure to get the Key Bridge rebuilt under Trump’s watch, he did not compliment him, according to footage reviewed by The Banner. The scene was part of a Fox Nation documentary series called “Art of the Surge.”
Once again responding to the president’s claims during a live interview, Moore said as much on WBAL Radio.
“I’m a person who takes my integrity very seriously, and I spent the past six months before that election campaigning as to why I did not think that he should be the next president of the of the United States,” Moore said. “So when I say that conversation never happened, that imaginary conversation never happened, I mean that conversation never happened.”
Pamela Wood contributed to this article.
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