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Transcript: Maryland Gov. Wes Moore on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” April 5, 2026

April 5, 2026T07:30:05-0400 / CBS News

The following is the full transcript of an interview with Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, which will air on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on April 5, 2026, moderated this week by senior White House and political correspondent Ed O’Keefe. The interview was taped on April 3, 2026.

ED O’KEEFE: Well, Governor, thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. We’re meeting amid an ongoing war that is having a bit of an effect on the economy. Rising gas prices, inflation keeps creeping up. It was a decent jobs report on Friday, but mortgage rates are climbing and mortgage applications are down. You observe this as a governor, and you know that residents in your state are feeling the economic pinch. What can you do as a governor to address all of this?

GOV. WES MOORE: Well, we are feeling it, and it is true that, you know, a governor does not control the fact that energy prices have spiked over the past year. You know, my, my mom’s energy bill in March of last year was $140. It’s now creeping close to $500. Governors don’t have full control over that. Governors can’t control the fact that gas prices have gone up now over $1 because we decided to enter into another war of choice, that governors cannot control the fact that we are continuing to watch homes become more difficult and more expensive. But the thing we can do as governors is we can make sure that even though I don’t control the price of food, that I can make sure that we’re not doing price manipulation, and that these big corporations aren’t gouging our customers, as we’re doing here in the state of Maryland. You know, that I can make sure that even though we are watching energy prices rise, that we can hold these data center companies accountable and also making sure we’re giving a rebate and giving something back to the people of the state of Maryland, which we’re doing here.

ED O’KEEFE: Even your approval rating appears to have taken a hit in recent days, at least in one survey, and among those who disapproved, they cited raising taxes and fees. There’s been some conversation in this state, at least, about possibly waiving the gas tax for a little while. It is one of the higher ones in the country. You say governors can’t do much about the gas price, you could conceivably establish a gas price holiday, no?

GOV. MOORE: Yeah. I mean, the best thing that we could do to be able to address gas prices is by stop fighting foreign wars and stop watching gas prices jump up over $1.

ED O’KEEFE: So you agree with the president’s theory that it will go back down once the war is over?

GOV. MOORE : No, I disagree, because I think the president still does not have a full articulation as to why gas prices are going up in the first place, or what’s going to be necessary or required to be able to bring them down. You know, I think about what we’ve done here in Maryland to address that, where we’ve actually given the middle class in Maryland a tax cut. Because I do believe that we need to give the middle class a little bit of extra relief now, and we ask the wealthiest of Marylanders to be able to invest a little bit more, so we can do things like having the rising, you know, increases in reading and math scores like we’re seeing in Maryland, and the fact that Maryland now has amongst the fastest drops in violent crime anywhere in the United States of America. And we ask the wealthiest of Marylanders to be able to do more to participate in that.

ED O’KEEFE: So gas tax holidays off the table, then, in your view?

GOV. MOORE: Yeah, I think we need to stop fighting these, these forever wars. And, you know, and I think about the fact that we are, we are very dangerously- we’re lurching again into another forever war. And this is a forever war that is very similar to the one that I fought in, where I led soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan. And I know that the United States was in Afghanistan for 20 years, that it cost this country over two and a half trillion dollars, that we lost over 2,400 American lives. And we did it because we said we wanted to change the Taliban. And 20 years later, you know who’s in charge of Afghanistan? The Taliban. And so I feel like we are lurching into another one of these forever wars that we’re asking the American people to pay for, but we have still- but the president of the United States and the commander in chief has still yet to articulate what exactly it is that we’re doing.

ED O’KEEFE: As we meet here, there are search and rescue operations underway now inside Iran because a U.S. fighter jet has been shot down. In recent days, the president suggested this operation will be done in two to three weeks. That doesn’t seem to sit with you.

GOV. MOORE: It’s- this is sitting horribly with me, because I’m thinking about these families. I’m thinking about the families of our service members, who right now who are afraid to pick up the phone because they’re afraid to hear what is on the other end of the line. That we had a president of the United States talk about the military success that we have seen thus far, while still acknowledge- without acknowledging the fact of the long road ahead and no one understands or can art- has been articulated to us, what exactly it is that we are doing, or what success looks like. And so, I’m- I’m praying for these families, but also what I’m praying for is some clarity from the White House.

ED O’KEEFE: You’re giving three commencement addresses this season to members of the Class of 2026. And one of them is at the military prep school that you attended. A bunch of those students may be heading into the services right away. What would be your message to them?

GOV. MOORE: I’m so proud of the fact that I- I’m going to give the commencement of the school that helped to save my life. You know, I got, I got sent there because people always say, why’d you choose to go to military school? I say, no one chooses to go to military school. I was sent because I was angry, because I was frustrated, because I had a difficult childhood, and that place helped to save my life. And I’m proud to go back and talk to these cadets. I also know that there will be some of those cadets who will then choose to join the military, and what I’m going to tell them is I’m proud of them. I’m proud of them for choosing a life of service. I’m proud of them for being able to fight for our country and fight for our democracy. But I am also praying for them, and I’m praying for the leadership of this country, that they will make decisions with them and their families in mind, and not just simply make decisions that I think have been just wrong-headed and foolish on their face.

ED O’KEEFE: Part of the reason I wanted to speak with you is in another recent interview, you floated a theory of what the next president is going to have to figure out and how to organize what President Trump has done in, as you said, into five distinct buckets: what’s broken and irreparable, what’s broken and can be fixed, what’s broken and needs to be fixed differently, what survives but needs to be broken and what survives and needs to be sustained. You’ve given this some thought, so I wanted to walk you through some specific things and sort of wonder what- what buckets they would fall into.

GOV. MOORE: Okay

ED O’KEEFE: Where would you put Iran?

GOV. MOORE: Well, I would actually put Iran into a larger bucket, and that is–

ED O’KEEFE: A sixth bucket?

GOV. MOORE: Well, how we think about foreign wars.

ED O’KEEFE: Okay.

GOV. MOORE: Right? Because, you know, I think about Donald Trump ran making three promises, right, that he was going to bring prices down, that he was going to release the Epstein files, and that he was not going to get us involved in foreign wars. And the American people voted for that. And it’s strike one, strike two, strike three, because on each and every one of those things that he promised he did not make happen. And so when I talk about how the United States military can and should be used ,as someone who has served, as someone who has fought for this country, I know there is- there are times when the- when the- when the United States military, the world’s greatest military, can and should be used. And let’s be clear, let’s not confuse military success with the United States military with strategic success.

ED O’KEEFE: So thinking ahead Iran, is it broken and irreparable? Does it survive and need to be sustained? Is it broken, need to be fixed differently, the relationship with Iran?

GOV. MOORE: I think that- that the relationship with Iran right now is- is not just broken, but I’m not sure if there has been an articulation of what the path forward is. And when we’re talking about Iran, you’re not just talking about the relationship with Iran, you’re talking about Iran’s relationship with other countries. You’re talking about a larger foreign policy, you know, complication. And by the way, we have decided to start this war when we’re also doing two separate things that we’ve essentially obliterated what we have in terms of our soft power, USAID, how America does its foreign aid, and we’re doing it while the Department of Homeland Security, whose job it is to keep the homeland safe, is shut down. So this is the- this is the- the- the- the frankly, the- just the foolishness in the way that we’re approaching issues of war and peace that I think we’ve got to be able to address.

ED O’KEEFE: What bucket would you put the U.S.’s relationship with Israel in?

GOV. MOORE: Well, I- I think the U.S. relationship with- with Israel is- is an important relationship. But I think with any important relationship, there needs to be accountability. You know, I look at the fact that we’re fighting this- this- this- this war in Iran, and one of the things that- there’s three things you always hope for as a soldier, right? That war should always be the last resort, that the second piece should always be that you are clear about your mission and clear about your end game and the third is that you built an international coalition. We haven’t done any of those things with this war that we are waging in Iran.

ED O’KEEFE: In the midst of all this, the President in recent days, told a gathering at the White House that, in his view, because of the 50 states, quote, it’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. He argues the federal government shouldn’t have to pay for those programs because, quote, we have to take care of one thing, military protection.

GOV. MOORE: That’s nonsense. And that’s not what any of us want. We don’t want to be fighting foreign wars while you’re taking away our health care.

ED O’KEEFE: Could a state even pay for Medicaid and Medicare–

GOV. MOORE: No

ED O’KEEFE: –daycare without federal assistance?

GOV. MOORE: So many of the decisions that this White House is making, they are making with a clear understanding that no state has a budget to say, okay, well, we’ll just take on health care, or we’ll just take on food insecurity. We saw that happen last year when the President of the United States broke the law in order to cut SNAP. In fact, we sued them, and we won, and we beat him in court on this. But we–

ED O’KEEFE: Sounds like he’s going to try again, though.

GOV. MOORE: And- and- and he did try again. He actually tried to appeal the fact, you know, threw a temper tantrum, because he felt- because the judges told him that actually, no, you need to pay for food assistance for people. And what we ended up doing is, in Maryland, I actually took $63 million out of our fiscal responsibility fund, which is a fund that is made up of capital gains taxes. And I said, well, I’m not going to let the people of my state go hungry, because Washington is throwing- having a food fight. And so we made sure that SNAP and SNAP benefits were not going to be cut for the people of Maryland. But it is a deeply unfair ask to ask states and or governors, because we do things that the federal government has never done, we actually balance our budgets. And it is an unfair ask to ask us to take on what should be a joint responsibility, because the federal government has decided to stop doing its job.

ED O’KEEFE: We have to leave it there, Governor. But thank you for taking the time. Happy Easter.

GOV. MOORE: Thank you. Happy Easter.