On this episode of The Siren Podcast, Jo sits down with Maryland Governor Wes Moore, the day before he delivers a major speech at the Maryland State House on the work of patriotism, timed deliberately against Trump’s “Freedom 250” rally in DC.
Governor Moore, a Rhodes scholar and former U.S. Army captain, explains why Democrats cannot allow Trump to co-opt patriotism, and why he thinks Trump is “uniquely incapable of meeting the moment.” His argument is simple: this country was never supposed to cede the difference to someone renaming America’s 250th birthday after himself.
Jo and Gov. Moore get into what it currently looks like on the ground in Maryland, where more than 31,000 federal workers have been fired by the Trump administration, the most of any state in the country. At the same time, over 180,000 people are now facing the loss of health care while Trump and his billionaire friends receive sweeping tax cuts as a reward for donating historic sums of money to his campaign.
The conversation also dives into the military, where Gov. Moore served in Afghanistan, specifically around Pete Hegseth’s desecration and destruction of the institution by purging generals, historic politicization, and forcing troops to take loyalty tests instead of oaths to the Constitution. Gov. Moore calls this heartbreaking, and says you can’t claim to support the troops while gutting their benefits and their leadership at the same time. The military, as Gov. Moore accurately points out during this episode, historically desegregated and addressed pay parity before the rest of the country did.
This is a hope-filled episode that you won’t want to miss, with one of our nation’s top leaders and rising stars. All this and more, right here on The Siren Network.
