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Maryland Gov. Wes Moore on Sunday blasted President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on crime as “purely performative,” rejecting the president’s suggestion that federal troops could be sent to Baltimore as part of a sweeping law-and-order campaign that began in Washington, D.C.
“While the President is spending his time from the Oval Office making jabs and attacks at us, there are people actually on the ground doing the work who know what supports would actually work to continue to bring down crime,” Moore said on Face the Nation. “But it’s falling on deaf ears of the president of the United States.”
Trump earlier this month federalized the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan Police Department and ordered National Guard troops into the capital, despite data showing overall crime has fallen in recent years. He has suggested the effort could expand to cities including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore and Oakland.
Moore, a Democrat, countered that the crackdown is “not scalable” or sustainable, calling it “deeply disrespectful” to the National Guard and unconstitutional. He vowed not to authorize Maryland Guard forces for Trump’s initiative.
“There is a multitude of reasons that I am against this, and I will not authorize the Maryland National Guard to be utilized for this,” Moore said.
Baltimore has recorded a 22% decline in homicides this year compared to 2024, according to the city’s police department. Moore touted that progress in a letter to Trump last week, inviting the president to join him on a public safety walk and see Maryland’s crime-reduction programs firsthand.
“The reason that I asked the president to come and join us is because he seems to enjoy living in this blissful ignorance, these tropes and these 1980s scare tactics,” Moore said.
Trump dismissed the invitation on Truth Social Sunday, writing that Moore should “clean up this Crime disaster before I go there for a ‘walk.’” He accused Moore of “fudging” statistics and suggested he would deploy troops to Baltimore if needed, as he has done in D.C. and Los Angeles.
Moore said crime reduction requires investments in local law enforcement and community programs, not politically charged deployments. “We know we have work to do,” he said. “But we also know what tactics actually work, and what tactics is just theatrics.”
