Donald Trump deepened his feud with Maryland’s Democratic governor on Sunday and threatened to cancel funding for the reconstruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which was destroyed by a ship strike last year.
The Republican president made no attempt to offer a reason for his threat other than his own political differences with Wes Moore, Maryland’s governor and the only Black leader of a U.S. state.
Instead, the president made clear in a Truth Social post that disaster relief funding would be wielded as a political weapon against any state or local leaders who dared challenge him.
“I gave Wes Moore a lot of money to fix his demolished bridge,” Trump said on Sunday, which isn’t true. He wasn’t president in 2024, when full federal funding for the project was allocated during government funding negotiations.
He continued: “I will now have to rethink that decision???”
The post came in response to Moore’s invitation to the president to walk the city of Baltimore.
Moore attempted to extend an olive branch to the president with his invitation last week, which came amid Trump’s threats to extend his federal takeover of Washington, D.C. to other cities with Democratic leadership and large Black populations.
“Donald Trump, if you are not willing to walk our communities, keep our name out of your mouth,” Moore said last week.
But Trump wasn’t having it.
In a lengthy Truth Social post on Sunday, he claimed the governor’s record on “crime” is “a very bad one, unless he fudges his figures on crime like many of the other ‘Blue States’ are doing.”
He said he would send in “troops” like he did in Los Angeles to “quickly clean up the Crime.”
“When it is like that in Baltimore, I will proudly ‘walk the streets’ with the failing, because of Crime, Governor of Maryland,” he wrote.
The White House announced earlier in August that it was federalizing Washington, D.C.’s police force and deploying the National Guard and agents from multiple federal law enforcement agencies on the streets of the nation’s capital. The purpose was ostensibly to combat a crime wave, though the administration’s explanation has shifted between fighting crime and beautification measures. After a few days, control of the police was returned to city leaders.
National Guard troops remain across D.C., however, and federal agents continue to patrol city streets. The president said on Friday that he was looking to expand his efforts to other cities led by Democrats, though legal restrictions over the deployment of the Guard will likely hinder that plan.
Moore, like other Democratic governors, has said that he will refuse to authorize the deployment of Maryland’s National Guard troops for crimefighting efforts in Baltimore.
But Sunday’s post from the president is an indication he could attempt to use Department of Transportation and FEMA disaster relief funding as a means of enticing Democratic governors to do his bidding.
“It's interesting the president seems to be more concerned about my future than he is about the future of the American people, and that's why I'm asking him to keep his focus,” Moore told CBS Face the Nation when asked about Trump’s remarks about the governor’s possible presidential ambitions.
“Focus on the things that actually matter right now, which is the fact that his economic policies are driving up prices on everything from electronics, to the clothes that we wear, to the food that we eat,” Moore said. “Talk about the fact that he has immigration policies that are knocking out tens of thousands of jobs in the state of Maryland. Talk about the fact that you are about to kick veterans and seniors off of health care. Don't worry about my future. Worry about theirs.”
After his appearance on the show on Sunday, Moore fired back at Trump’s
“President Bone Spurs will do anything to get out of walking — even if that means spouting off more lies about the progress we’re making on public safety in Maryland,” Moore wrote, referencing the president’s medical deferment that exempted him from being drafted into military service during the Vietnam War.
“Hey Donald, we can get you a golf cart if that makes things easier,” Moore wrote. “Just let my team know.”
The Francis Scott Key Bridge, named after the poet who penned “The Star-Spangled Banner,” was a Baltimore landmark for decades. Its destruction in 2024, the result of a cargo ship losing power and steering into a support column, also caused the deaths of a work crew who were performing maintenance on the bridge in the late evening hours when the incident took place.
The closure of that stretch of Maryland’s I-695 beltway continues to disrupt transit around Baltimore and had immediate and significant effects on the state economy. The destruction shuttered the Port of Baltimore for 11 weeks, at a staggering economic impact estimated around $15 million per day.
In a separate post on Truth Social the president questioned whether Moore, who served in the Army, lied about being awarded a Bronze Star.
Moore was awarded a Bronze Star last year for meritorious service; Army officials acknowledged that the mixup was a result of paperwork not being properly processed, not deception on Moore’s part.
The governor fired back in a post on X, writing: “Did Donald Trump, the President of the United States, lie about an injury to dodge the Vietnam draft?”
