BALTIMORE – Maryland Gov. Wes Moore reignited a feud with President Donald Trump, accusing the Republican of blocking him from speaking at an event in his own state.
The event in Baltimore was put on by the Trump administration and a defense tech company to announce a new facility that will manufacture submarine parts. Moore said he was involved in facilitating the investment for more than a year – but said he would be skipping the event because Trump barred him from delivering remarks.
"If the president of the United States wants to bring the circus into town and tell me that I'm not allowed to speak, when in fact, we were the ones who helped bring the deal, then I will let the circus be conducted while I go back to the work of the people of Maryland,"
Moore told reporters in a video posted on X by a Baltimore FOX 45 News reporter.
Trump and Moore have a history of fighting over invitations: The Democratic governor, who's up for reelection this November and may run for president, sparred with the White House earlier this year over a historically bipartisan event for governors that it said he could not attend.
The Baltimore announcement pitted the pair against each other once more, as the White House argued that Trump "graciously invited Governor Moore to attend today's event as a guest" and said it is "unfortunate that the Governor is now making a multi-billion-dollar announcement about himself by throwing a tantrum."
Moore attended a debate for his reelection race earlier on Oct. 6 and was due to attend a ribbon cutting ceremony later in the day.
A source familiar said that Moore was invited to speak by the private company, Anduril Industries, but blocked by Trump from speaking. The White House did not dispute that in their response to USA TODAY, and when asked if they invited Moore to speak, Anduril deferred USA TODAY to the White House and governor's office for comment.
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and Trump were among the U.S. officials who spoke at the event unveiling a $6.6 billion federal partnership between the U.S. Navy and the Anduril Industries.
The company's CEO Chris Schimpf thanked Moore at the event in Baltimore. Anduril referred a request for comment on the dispute between Trump and Moore to the governor's office and the White House.
In February, Moore, the nation's only Black governor, said he was not invited to a National Governor's Association dinner at the White House, a break from tradition that sparked pushback from Republican Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt. The White House defended the decision to not invite Moore and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis to the dinner, saying that other Democrats were invited and Trump "reserves the right to invite whomever he wants."
Moore is a potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender, and despite his public spats with the president, he told USA TODAY in February that he had "no desire of being combative with the president of the United States." That same week, Trump blamed Moore for one of the largest sewage spills in U.S. history, after a sewage line in a Maryland suburb of Washington, DC collapsed.
"I fight for my people. I defend my people. And when I'm watching someone attack my people, I have no problem returning fire," Moore said in the interview at the time.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: In renewed Trump-Moore feud, Dem governor accuses Trump of a new exclusion
