Hours after the U.S. Senate had narrowly passed President Donald Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” by a narrow margin, Gov. Wes Moore (D) on Tuesday evening blasted the measure as “the most heartless piece of legislation that I have seen in my lifetime.”
“We are essentially watching a federal government who is staring millionaires in the eyes and saying ‘I got you’ — and they’re looking at all the rest of us and saying ‘You’re on your own’,” Moore declared of the legislation during an appearance at the Leisure World community in Silver Spring.
The Trump legislation, which now faces a final vote in the House before it can become law, would permanently extend tax cuts enacted during Trump’s first term, while increasing spending for national security and deportation of undocumented immigrants. It would also institute controversial cuts in Medicaid, a health insurance program aimed at moderate- and lower-income citizens, to help pay for the measure.
“This is the largest consolidation of wealth, by the way, not [just] in recent times — this bill represents the largest consolidation of wealth in world history,” Moore told a packed auditorium of members of the Leisure World Democratic Club.
Moore also launched into a lengthy criticism of his Republican predecessor, Larry Hogan, in response to an audience question.
“I do find it funny when you hear people talk about fiscal responsibility – and all I got to say is we got receipts that show there was not much fiscal responsibility going on with my predecessor,” Moore said, amid continuing speculation in state political circles that Hogan may run to get his old job back in 2026..
Asked in a brief interview after the event if he expects Hogan to run against him next year, Moore — frequently touted as a potential 2028 presidential candidate despite denials of interest — responded with an unflattering nickname that he has previously used for his predecessor. Moore hasn’t formally announced he’ll run for re-election but has frequently made it clear he’ll seek a second term.
“I don’t think about the ‘old governor’ at all — I really don’t,” Moore said. “We’re way too busy helping Maryland to drive historic drops in violent crime, historically low unemployment rates and being able to combat against the ills of the Trump administration.”
In his opening remarks, Moore took aim at the cuts the Trump legislation proposes to make in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as well as Medicaid. The governor noted there is currently an older adult receiving SNAP benefits in one of every three Maryland households.
“I have now known for six months about how this administration feels about our state, how this administration feels about me,” Moore told the gathering, while adding: “…We continue reading through and getting more details about this bill that they are proposing, and I’m realizing it’s actually deeper than what I thought, because it’s not an intention of severing the relationship between the federal government and the states — it’s actually the intent of severing the relationship between the federal government and its citizens.”
He blasted the Trump administration for “the cruelty of staring in the face of hundreds of thousands of Marylanders and saying ‘By the way, you no longer have health care’.” He also accused the president and supporters of the legislation of being “willing to essentially put up a knife to the heart of rural health care.”
While vowing to take steps to protect affected Marylanders if the Trump legislation becomes law, Moore did not immediately offer any specific solutions.
“The beautiful thing is that …in our state we have leaders who have not just pledged but are planning to do anything and everything in our power to make sure that we do not break our promises to people who are receiving SNAP and Medicaid,” he said.
Repeating the “no one left behind” slogan that he used to define his successful 2022 campaign for governor, Moore vowed: “You’re going to see a team that is going to get real creative about ways that, when we say we will leave no one behind, we mean that.”
At the same time, he acknowledged: “The truth is that there is no state and there is no state budget that can make up for the whole of the federal government essentially saying ‘I’m out’ the way this administration has done.”
Meanwhile, in taking aim at his gubernatorial predecessor, Moore decried “a fallacy about a structural surplus that we inherited” from the Hogan administration. He said he had faced a structural deficit upon taking office in early 2023 after years in which Maryland’s economy had grown by less than half the national average among other states.
“We’ve got to grow the economy, and that’s what we’ve been focusing on,” Moore said.
He noted the state’s structural deficit had been temporarily masked by the large infusion of one-time assistance from the federal government to all states that flowed during the Biden administration in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“…We have now done something for three years in a row that my predecessor never got done – we’ve now gone three straight years where we’ve actually decreased the size of the general fund, actually decreased the size of spending in government [to] do more with less,” Moore said.
By comparison, he contended that state spending had increased 70% during seven previous years in which Hogan was governor. “Anybody who wants to challenge that, my statement is this — you bring your receipts and I’ll bring mine,” Moore said.
Louis Peck is a contributing editor for Bethesda Magazine.
