John Heilemann of Showtime’s “The Circus” attends a Showtime event in 2017. Heilemann hosted Maryland Gov. Wes Moore on his “Impolitic” podcast this week. Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Showtime
Their demeanor was positively bro-y, with interlocutor and interview subject frequently addressing each other as “Dude” and “Man” and “My Brother.”
Yet Gov. Wes Moore’s appearance this week on Puck pundit John Heilemann’s “Impolitic” podcast went beyond the realm of the governor’s usual interviews.
Over 43 minutes, the two talked at length about the White House election, military culture and Maryland matters, weaving in sports and pop culture references. Heilemann dropped several F-bombs and other profanities; Moore did not.
Heilemann teed up the interview by calling Moore “one of 50 people under 50 … who have a credible path to the White House” in the future.
“He’s always seemed destined to people who knew him ― including me ― to be destined for public office,” Heilemann said, adding that Moore “knocked the cover off the ball” during his speech at the Democratic National Convention in August. Some audio of the speech followed.
During the conversation, Moore revealed that he had only met Vice President Kamala Harris once before her election to that job in 2020 and only started getting to know her better since she offered the state unbridled support after the collapse of the Key Bridge this spring.
Moore marveled at how much Harris had to do in such a short period of time to transition from being the vice president seeking reelection to being the Democratic presidential nominee, even though President Joe Biden’s team had built the campaign infrastructure.
“Every campaign has to be tailored to the candidate,” Moore said, comparing Biden’s handoff to Harris to Lamar Jackson taking over as Baltimore Ravens’ quarterback from Joe Flacco.
“I don’t think people really had a full understanding of what she had to do,” he said.
Moore said he’s come to learn that Harris has an “iron spine,” though prompted by Heilemann, he fretted over her answer on “The View” that she couldn’t think of one thing she’d have done differently from Biden.
“Honestly, she should not have answered the question like that,” adding that not only was it politically inadvisable but that, “It’s not how she has run her race.”
Moore also talked at length about his military service and military ethos ― and how the withering criticism of former President Donald Trump from the generals who once worked for him is so significant.
“There is not a core American value that I think is safe under him,” Moore said. “He’s talking about a fundamental shift in the way we do business.”
Moore said Trump’s remarks about Arnold Palmer’s genitalia “would actually be entertaining” if he wasn’t running for president, and said he is “heartbroken and terrified” by Trump’s assertion that he’ll use the military to confront “the enemy from within” if he’s reelected.
“Terrified because I know he has the intention of doing it,” Moore said. “And heartbroken because it’s so un-American.”
Moore criticized Trump apologists who are “bending over backwards to defend him” and trying to explain away some of the former president’s most incendiary comments. He compared it to the line in J. Cole rap hit, “No Role Modelz”: “Don’t save her, she don’t wanna be saved.”