Good evening. Tonight we’ll catch up with Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland, check in on Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s latest moves and cover the Republican backlash to a racist video posted by President Trump.
Wes Moore on 2028, his party’s problems and his favorite crab cake
Welcome back to our interview series with top national Democrats who have ideas about their party’s path back to power. Today we’re catching up with Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland. He was in the news this week after the Maryland House of Delegates, siding with the governor, approved a newly gerrymandered congressional map that would most likely eliminate the state’s only Republican-leaning congressional district. (Its fate in the State Senate, however, is far from certain.) Moore, the first Black governor of Maryland, is up for re-election this year in his solidly blue state. A U.S. Army veteran, he is also seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2028. He has already visited some early primary states and is maintaining his national donor network, recently swinging through New York City to fund-raise, an adviser told me. CBS News plans to air a televised town hall with Moore on Feb. 15. I saw him at a meeting of the Democratic Governors Association in December, where my colleague Lisa Lerer and I talked with him about the future of the party, the next presidential election and where to find the best Maryland crab cakes. Here are excerpts from our conversation, edited and condensed: Katie Glueck: What do you see as your party’s most urgent challenge in 2026? Gov. Wes Moore: Delivering actual results instead of just talking about them. KG: Its biggest opportunity? WM: Not just railing against Donald Trump, but showing what an alternative to Donald Trump can look like. KG: What is the most significant way Trump has changed America? WM: For a lot of people, they questioned whether or not government could work for them. Donald Trump has changed it, where people now question whether or not government even cares to work for them. KG: What is the single most important thing that the Democratic Party should stand for? KG: What do you consider your hometown and what is your single strongest restaurant recommendation there? WM: Baltimore, Maryland. God, that’s hard. The best crab cake is probably Koco’s. The best combo of food and vibe is BLK Swan. If you’re looking for a fancier restaurant, I’d say Charleston. BLK Swan, they have a chicken and waffles, which is crazy good. Charleston, it’s multicourse meals. You tell them how many courses you want, you can do three entrees if you want. KG: Is that what you do? WM: Oh yeah. KG: What is your workout routine? Lisa Lerer: Especially if you’re ordering three entrees. WM: Every morning, at 6 a.m., I work out at the Naval Academy, we’ll work out with the midshipmen. What I do in the morning, it depends on what they’re doing. So I’ll show up in the morning, and if they’re doing buddy drags, I’ll do buddy drags. If they’re swimming, I’ll go swimming. If they are just hitting the weight room or doing wind sprints, I’ll go do that. I just show up in the morning and they give me no advance warning, and it just depends on how aggressive they’re feeling. I show up one morning, and the guy opens up the door, this big guy, and he’s just like, ‘Listen, we can kind of cordon off a part of the gym for you. Or we can work out together, and you can actually get after it.’ I was like, ‘OK.’ What’s my response? ‘No, I’m good?’ [A staff member tries to wrap up the conversation.] WM: No, this is fun! KG: I hope you say that after my next question. Name one person you want to see run for president in 2028. WM: I don’t know if she’d do it. You know who I really like? Gina Raimondo [the former commerce secretary and governor of Rhode Island]. She’s a friend, and she’s super smart. She’s sober. She has a very clear understanding of how complicated the world is. She’s been a governor. KG: You think the next nominee for the Democratic Party should be a governor? WM: We don’t get bonus points by just railing against the system. You actually have to solve problems. I don’t get a chance to lead in a world that I wish existed. And I think the governors can uniquely understand that. LL: Do you think the party has solved its long-term problems? WM: I just don’t want us to think that victory driven through anger is sustainable. My biggest fear, my biggest danger is that right now, there is another binary that exists, and that binary is not Democrat or Republican, or progressive versus conservative. The binary is, in or out. If the question always is just, between Democrats and Republicans, who gets a larger chunk of a smaller pie, then I think our democracy is going to have real, real pains. KG: Persuadable voters — it’s not just, can you be persuaded to go left or right? It’s, can you be persuaded to engage? WM: Do you want to vote? Do you care? We’re watching these pendulum swings that are just becoming increasingly violent. And my fear of the violent pendulum swings is that, the tether — we’re just putting a lot of pressure on that chain, and I don’t know how much longer that chain is going to hold as long as these pendulum swings are so violent.
QUOTE OF THE DAY “It’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.”That was Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, referring to the racist video clip Trump posted on social media of the Obamas. “The President should remove it,” added Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate. The White House initially dismissed criticism of the video as “fake outrage,” but it was later deleted after a wave of criticism from Republican lawmakers. Got a tip?
Democrats are clashing again over IsraelEven after the official end of the Gaza war, emotional debates over American support for Israel continue to tear apart the Democratic Party. The latest point of friction came on Thursday in a House primary race in New Jersey, where the efforts of a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group appeared to backfire. My colleague Jenny Medina has more.
2028 WATCH What’s next for Ocasio-Cortez?Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York swept into office as a progressive agitator. These days, my colleagues Kellen Browning and Reid Epstein write, she is increasingly seen as a leader in the mainstream Democratic Party. So what’s next? A Senate bid? A presidential run? It’s one of the biggest questions in Democratic politics, and one we — and she — may not know the answer to for some time. But in one sign she is keeping her options open, she plans to speak next week at the Munich Security Conference.
TAKE OUR QUIZ This question comes from a recent article in The Times. Click an answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.) A group aligned with the Make America Healthy Again movement is releasing a Super Bowl spot featuring the boxer Mike Tyson. What is the ad’s message? Taylor Robinson and Ama Sarpomaa contributed reporting. Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.
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