Gov. Wes Moore on Trump's Economic Chaos

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See full terms at mintmobile.com. I do think with the arrival of the tariff inflation, further progress may be delayed.
The SEP doesn't really show further downward progress on inflation this year, and that's really due to the tariffs coming in. That was the announcement by the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, saying that because of the Trump tariff stuff and all of the Trump economic kind of disaster, they wanted to cut interest rates, but they just don't see inflation coming down.
Governor, I want to chat with you about what you're doing in your state because you actually got a good report in Maryland. Governor Westmore, you're governor of Maryland.
Governor, I want to play one more clip from you for what went down today at this press conference with the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Powell. They are lowering their projections now on what the GDP growth was supposed to be.
It was supposed to soar. And here's what's happening right now.
Let's play it. In our summary of economic projections, the median participant projects GDP to rise 1.7% this year, somewhat lower than projected in December, and to rise a bit below 2% over the next two years.
It's somewhat lower, but it's significantly lower than if Trump just put this on overdrive, let the economy just kind of rock and roll and not interfere with it every day. I want to talk about what you're doing in your state.
But first, let's just get your reaction to Trump's policies. It almost feels like you have to fight against this tide right now.
Yeah. The only certainty we've gotten from this new administration is uncertainty.
Right. And I think people are just looking for basic predictability.
They're just like, tell me what the situation is and we can find ways to adapt and to adjust on it. But when it changes every day and when you are using tools like tariffs, which are tools and using it as an ideology, the way this administration does and changing numbers every day.
And I mean, that leads to a level of uncertainty that I think drives not just markets crazy, but drives all business influence crazy. I mean, the thing that we are trying to do in our state is we have really been focusing on focusing on economic growth, on giving certainty to industries, because that can lead to greater levels of employment, at least a greater levels of economic growth.
And also it allows us to diversify our economy off of Washington. And if you're looking at what's happening in the state of Maryland, it's actually working, even contrary to the headwinds that we're getting from Washington, where we just announced, if you look at the most recent job numbers, we have now added more jobs in Maryland over the past two years since I've been the governor than the previous administration and the previous governor got during eight years, during two terms, right? So our focus on things like investing in childcare, our focusing on things like investing in apprenticeship programs and trade programs, our focus on the service year option, which is getting more young people into the workforce, Like these things are actually working to drive growth, particularly private sector growth.
But it is without a shadow of a doubt, the kind of craziness that we have seen from this new administration is definitely making it harder for our nation's chief executives and not easier at all. You know, and now what's he saying that he goes, April 2nd is going to be liberation day.
He says liberation day. And this is for real what they're saying.
They say they're going to give every country is going to get an envelope, but I'm not making this up. And in the envelope, it's going to have their tariff number on it.
And so the like like a game show. Right.
And then the for real and then the countries are going to open it up because not April 1st, because that's April Fool's Day, April 2nd. And then depending on how the countries treat Donald Trump from now until then, they get a number and that's what their tariff is.
And then we make a whole kind of show of it. And to your point, it's just like, why? Why? For what? This is not a game.
And you're playing with people's lives. And I think about where our largest trade partner is Canada, for example.
We've got three billion, three billion dollars of exports that we do with Canada with Canada every single year. This past weekend, I was speaking with a Canadian ambassador and almost doing essentially my own independent diplomacy with our trade partner, because that level of diplomacy coming from the federal government is now non-existent and it's now almost playful.
This is serious stuff because this is impacting our businesses, which turns around and impacts our neighborhoods, which turn around and impact our families, which turn around and impact our children. This is not a game.
And the really frustrating thing about it for me is we have people who are in very serious positions who are not serious people. And this has very real consequences on the states that we run and in the communities that we are vowed to protect and that we will protect.
Tell me what you can about that conversation with your Canadian counterpart or with the Canadian ambassador who you're speaking to, because as Donald Trump keeps on talking about annexing the country, which, by the way, they're taking that not just as a joke, not just as a trade war. Their view in that, what they've told me, is as like words of actual war on the sovereignty of the country.
And we got headlines like this, Canadian airline cancels flights to Tennessee and other US routes. I've seen some reports that travel is down as much as 50 to, I saw some reports, 85% leisure travel down.
First, I guess, what are you seeing in your state regarding that Canadian boycott? And what were you hearing from that ambassador that you spoke to? Well, a lot of what we're seeing is you're seeing some of the direct impacts on things like the Port of Baltimore, which is one of our nation's, you know, largest, largest, you know, ports. And also you're seeing how trade, where the Port of Baltimore really serves as a real vessel for larger trade all across the country, which has been directly impacted.
But who we're also hearing it from is things like chicken farmers on the Eastern Shore, who rely on trade from Canada and Mexico, and both import and export. We're also hearing it from people who are like developers who are working on housing.
I'm very aggressive when it comes to the opportunities to create more housing inventory, because I believe that creating more housing inventory will also drive down housing costs. And so we've been very aggressive on things like transit-oriented development and density bonuses and creating incentives for more housing.
But when materials are more expensive now because of these arbitrary trade wars we're putting on board, it makes it more complicated for our developers to be able to predict what becomes the cost that we're going to have for our trade. And so the thing that we're just continuing to lean on, our partners and our international partners, is basically showing them that here you have consistency.
Here you have a measure of soberness in the way that we think about the work. And here you have people who are going to put together policies that actually defend our people and not policies that end up actually impacting and hurting our people.
And I think there is a real sense of appreciation for that, for that consistent, particularly in atomic chaos. One of the things I just want to make sure we touch upon is I don't really see a lot of other leaders talking about this and you posted about and you made it a priority.
You've talked about it in your state of the state also. Your concern about the men and boys in the state and frankly throughout the country and your commitment to reaching out and, you know, just speaking to kind of a lost generation, suicide rates up and depression kind of up.
Why has this been a priority to you? What are you hearing? What are you doing? You know, a big thing for me is we just follow the data. That if you look at the data, you talk about things like the suicide race.
We talk about the fact that college attainment levels for young men and boys were the same now as they were in 1964. Our young men and boys are falling behind.
And the problem is, is that I think for so long, we've also just been deeply ignored. And for me, it's not just it, it's not a, you know, some data conversation.
It's personal, right? I'm a kid who grew up and was raised by an immigrant single mom who did not get her first job until with benefits until I was 14 years old. And I'm also a kid who had handcuffs from my wrist by the time I was 11.
I'm a kid who was, who was, who was sent to a military school when I was 13, joined the army when I was 17 years old, went to a two-year college, was a person who came up in communities that were over-policed and we knew it. And we knew that the way they oftentimes dealt with young boys was simply by criminalizing us.
And so this is a very personal thing for me and something that I knew that, you know, we can't people can't just wake up to this because they look at election rolls. If you're looking at an election, you're you caught it too late because that's the tale.
We have young men and boys who feel deeply disillusioned by this system because the system has left them behind. And so as a state, we're making a very deliberate effort to be able to address this.
I've actually ordered all of my cabinet secretaries and all of my agency heads where this is now a performance indicator for them about what are they doing in their own areas to be able to impact the prospects for young men and boys, where we are doing things like putting a core focus of getting more men inside of the classroom, putting a focus on getting more men inside of nursing, the nursing industry in places where we know there's been a dearth and a pullback from men, doing more when it comes to job training and apprenticeship programs, doing more to be able to help the young men who are involved in our juvenile justice system. Because if you look at the juvenile justice system in the state of Maryland and around the country, it is predominantly dominated by young boys.
So we've got to get serious about this. And if you care about the growth of your communities, if you care about the growth of families, if you care about having more people who are, who are, who our daughters are going to have the opportunity to be able to have as partners, get young boys right.
And that's what I think this country has deeply, deeply missed. And so that's why I'm just unapologetic that in the state of Maryland, we're going to make this a real focus about how we think about our work going forward.
You know, it's great where you, when in a world where you hear about things like Doge, that's crashing government and attacking people to actually show people a state government that's actually doing things to help and uplift people. That's why we love having you on, Governor Westmore.
Thanks for sharing the personal story about your background. I know lots of people know who you are, but I think it's helpful that they also are reminded about how you got to where you are and why that's a part of your commitment.
So thanks for joining us as always. And of course, we'd love to have you back.
I appreciate you so much. And congrats again.

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