Wes Moore

But the reason that I was explaining to people that it isn't just because I think child poverty is an embarrassment in any civilized society.

It's also because if you care about public safety, focus on ending child poverty.

Because oftentimes you see the areas that have to deal with poverty and oftentimes concentrated and generational poverty.

They're also the places that deal with the heaviest levels of violence.

So increase accountability and increase opportunity.

And I think that's been the formula that we have been using.

And it's a formula that's working.

Well, I remember when the president was threatening that last summer and he was talking about the deployment of our National Guard.

And I was very clear.

I am the commander in chief of the Maryland National Guard, not the president.

The governor is the commander in chief.

They move on the orders of the commander in chief.

I'm very clear on where lines of authority begin.

I'm very clear on where lines of authority end.

And I'm also very clear that we have remarkably trained citizen soldiers in our National Guard.

And frankly, they deserve the respect of a commander in chief who actually does not use them randomly or for political purposes, but actually understands the lives that they live.

And so, you know, so our ability to show that you can drive down violent crime,

Our ability to show that you can lead by constitutional policing and not by authoritarian takeovers, that you can actually work with community to drive down crime in neighborhoods and not think that the National Guard, instead of being there to decrease violence, you're actually there to incite it.

So there is a better approach.

And I think that what Maryland is showing is that in this moment, we're not just there to push back, but we can actually show a way to push forward and show that there's a better direction and there's a better way from the type of chaotic decision making that we're seeing from Donald Trump and J.D.