Democratic Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland says he didn't seek a political scrap with President Donald Trump.
"I don't have any personal desire to go back and forth with the President of the United States. That's not why I ran for office," the Democratic governor of the solidly blue state emphasized in a Fox News Digital interview.
But like it or not, that's where Moore finds himself.
Trump refused to invite Moore to a traditionally bipartisan dinner of all the nations' governors later this week at the White House, saying Moore was "not worthy" of attending the event.
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And earlier this week, Trump heavily criticized Moore for a massive sewage spill in the Potomac River, blaming him and local leaders for "gross mismanagement."
The governor, a former U.S. Army officer, businessman and author, who, as a first-time candidate, overwhelmingly won election four years ago and is expected to cruise to a second term victory this year, is seen by pundits as a possible 2028 White House hopeful, even though he's repeatedly said he's not running for president.
But Moore has not been as aggressive as other Democratic governors - such as California's Gavin Newsom and Illinois JB Pritzker - in taking aim at Trump during his first year back in the White House.
The governor said he "wanted to get away" from "these political games that we see in Washington, D.C."
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But Moore says it's "absurd" that Trump is blaming him after a pipe bust on federal land resulted in an ecological disaster as hundreds of millions of gallons of sewage spilled into the Potomac River a few miles upstream from the nation's capital.
Trump, on Monday, took to social media to warn of a "massive Ecological Disaster" that he blamed on "Gross Mismanagement of Local Democrat Leaders, particularly, Governor Wes Moore, of Maryland."
A day later, the president argued that "Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., who are responsible for the massive sewage spill in the Potomac River, must get to work, IMMEDIATELY."
"If they can't do the job, they have to call me and ask, politely, to get it fixed. The Federal Government is not at all involved with what has taken place, but we can fix it," Trump added.
And on Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt highlighted that the "federal government wants to fix it," and added "we hope that the local authorities will cooperate with us in doing so."
The sewage pipes are managed by D.C. Water, an independent utility based in the District of Columbia, which has made emergency repairs, but says it will take four to six weeks to completely fix what's known as a broken interceptor.
"This is a Washington, D.C., pipe on federal land. Maryland has nothing to do with this. In fact, the only thing Maryland did was when we saw a neighbor who was in need. That's why I ordered people, our people to go support them, and that's what we've been doing the past month," Moore told Fox News Digital.
And he argued, "We've been doing essentially the federal government's job, because it's the federal government's job to be able to protect the Potomac interconnector, because that's federal land."
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"For the president now to come and attack me on this, I find that to be ... absurd," Moore charged.
Moore was interviewed a couple of hours after meeting with House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries in Annapolis as Democrats continue to push for mid-decade congressional redistricting to counter efforts by Trump and Republicans in other states to draw more right-leaning districts.
Jeffries held a meeting with Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson, a fellow Democrat, who is opposed to redrawing Maryland's map in order to create another left-leaning congressional district.
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Moore has led the push for redistricting in Maryland, and the effort has already passed through the state House. But Ferguson, to date, has declined to put the measure up for a vote in his chamber, saying that legal repercussions could cause the redistricting push in Maryland to backfire. And the meeting with Jeffries didn't change his mind.
The governor says his "ask" is "to simply vote."
"And as someone who fought for this country and someone who fought for democracy, I just believe in fighting for democracy, and I think that requires a vote, no matter how the vote turns out, it frankly, doesn't matter, but just vote."
Republicans have blasted as "partisan gerrymandering" the move by Moore, which, if passed, could result in Rep. Andy Harris, the lone Republican in Maryland's congressional delegation, losing his seat through redistricting.
Asked if what he's advocating is partisan gerrymandering, Moore said, "The reason we're even having this conversation about mid-decade redistricting is it is because the president has introduced this, that the president when he first started calling Texas and then Florida and then Missouri and Ohio and North Carolina saying, 'I want you all to look at the maps in the middle of a decade.' I just don't see how a real or responsible answer for anyone else to be well, that's okay, just let them do it."
"We're just asking for the Maryland Senate to just do your democratic duty and debate, discuss, make changes if necessary, but then vote," the governor insisted.
