Author Wes Moore took questions from the audience during his presentation at the Auditorium Speaker series during the Midwinter Meeting and Exhibits. Image via Flickr.

Maryland’s Democratic Governor Wes Moore criticized President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and federal officers to the streets of Washington, D.C., branding it a “performative” act that does nothing to address crime long term.

“I can tell you right now, what people want more than anything in those communities is they don’t want performative, they want performance,” Governor Moore told “Fox and Friends” on Wednesday.

“They’re not looking for someone to walk around with military fatigues and a big gun. They’re looking for someone who actually understands how to make people feel safe and how to make people actually safe in their communities. Our National Guards are not trained for this.”

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Moore said he was happy to stand on his record of success in fighting crime in the Old Line State, stressing that his success did not come from deploying the military to police the streets of his state.

“And so all I’m saying is this, if we want to have a serious conversation about violent crime, we can have a serious conversation about violent crime, and I would love to be able to share the multitude of things that we are doing in the state of Maryland, where we are surging support for local law enforcement, surging support for predictive analytics and technologies, surging support for community groups and allowing more supports for the mayor and the county executive, and the people on the ground doing the work, and we were able to receive some really encouraging and historic results in Baltimore and around the state of Maryland, and I never once had to mobilize the National Guard in order to accomplish accomplish those feats.”

In April, Baltimore’s homicide rate dropped to a historic low, according to The Baltimore Banner. Last month, Governor Moore wrote that “In the first half of 2025, Baltimore had the fewest homicides ever recorded. Compared to this time in 2022, we’ve seen a 62% decrease.”

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Moore’s emphasis on his record of success without deploying the National Guard did not appear to please host Lawrence Jones.

“And so if we want to be serious about making people safe,” Moore said, “let’s actually do the things that make people safe.”

“I’m way over time, Governor,” Jones said, closing down the interview.

Watch the video below or at this link.