Valuetainment - May 05, 2026


＂I Wasn't Their Choice＂ - Gov. Wes Moore REVEALS How He Won WITHOUT The Party Machine

Hosted by
Patrick Bet-David
Mentioned
Stephen A. Smith Kobe Bryant Ray Lewis Wes Moore Obama Condoleezza Rice Stephon Marbury Donald Trump Stephen A Caul Shi Tuscaneiro
＂Trump Is The Anti-Christ＂ - Tucker Carlson CORNERED In Explosive NYT Interview ＂Who The Hell Is Wes Moore？＂ - The 2028 Democratic Frontrunner NOBODY Saw Coming

Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

204.0

Word count

1,902

Sentence count

122


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On this episode of the podcast, Pat McAfee sits down with former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan to discuss his political career and how he became the first Black Governor in the state s history. Pat talks about how he got his start in politics, why he decided to run for office, and what it was like being the first African-American governor of Maryland.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Anybody and everybody that brings up your name, who knows you, loves you.
00:00:05.020 Whether it's Stephen A. Smith, we're out there saying, Pat, I'm telling you, watch Wes.
00:00:09.060 Watch Governor Moore, Ray Lewis.
00:00:11.680 Ray Lewis is like, I'm telling you, he's the guy.
00:00:14.080 I'm telling you.
00:00:15.380 So, I mean, of course, when it comes down to the political side,
00:00:19.160 the philosophies, ideology, we'll have those conversations as well.
00:00:22.500 But for me, seeing guys that come up with one of the best stories out there,
00:00:27.560 one fun fact that you may not know this,
00:00:29.100 you know we're born three days apart.
00:00:31.140 Get out of here.
00:00:31.680 You're three days older than you're October 1578.
00:00:36.260 He looks so much younger than me.
00:00:37.760 No, no, no, stop it, stop it.
00:00:39.460 And then when we look at the background, what you've done,
00:00:42.360 bachelor's, John Hopkins University, first black governor in Maryland's history,
00:00:47.140 paratrooper, White House fellow under Condoleezza Rice,
00:00:50.640 captain in Army 1998 to 2014, served in Afghanistan, 82nd Airborne,
00:00:56.080 Southern Baptist, church going, received bronze medal, you know, investment banker in New York.
00:01:02.200 I got a bunch of things I'm going through this saying, wait a minute.
00:01:04.880 Is this guy a Republican or a Democrat?
00:01:07.400 I found something from old school telling me, member of the college Republicans at Valley Forge Military, 1998 yearbook?
00:01:16.360 Well, you know, it's funny, and I tell people this all the time.
00:01:19.340 When I ran for governor, I was not the Democrat's choice.
00:01:24.400 The Democrats, there were like 11 people running or whatever it was.
00:01:28.600 And we had statewide elected officials.
00:01:30.780 We had two Obama cabinet secretaries.
00:01:33.560 We had the former head of the Democratic Party who was running for governor.
00:01:37.680 And me, the guy who'd never run for office in my life.
00:01:40.960 Were you like underdog at the highest level?
00:01:42.940 True.
00:01:43.680 I was polling at 1% in my first poll.
00:01:46.720 I'm not voting was polling higher than Wes Moore.
00:01:49.460 And so I was like the underdog of the underdog when I first started running.
00:01:52.980 But I was like, but I'm not running to be, you know, to lead the Democratic Party.
00:01:58.980 I'm not running because that, you know, I take any any party's talking points and just swallow them like I don't do that.
00:02:04.620 And that's not my family's background. That's not my background. I was like, does it make sense or not?
00:02:09.160 And so when I ran, I wasn't the Democratic Party's choice, but it turned out that I was a choice of the people of the state of Maryland, which is all that ever mattered to me.
00:02:18.240 And that's exactly how I've tried to govern now, where it's like, you know, I'm not I don't take my talking points from party bosses.
00:02:23.640 I don't do that. It's like, does it make sense for my people or not?
00:02:26.800 At what point when you were running for governor, did Obama call you and say, hey, we're going to endorse you?
00:02:31.460 We're going to support. Did that call ever happen or no?
00:02:33.280 No, that that didn't happen until the general election.
00:02:36.740 I never got it. I never I wasn't getting big endorsements in the primary.
00:02:40.340 So the primary you did it all by yourself.
00:02:42.400 No, the primary, we had a bunch of the established Democrats were already endorsing other people because they'd worked with them and they're like, they didn't know me.
00:02:51.060 They're like, we've never worked with you.
00:02:52.080 What was the breaking point?
00:02:52.960 What event happened?
00:02:54.320 Was there a talk?
00:02:55.160 Was there an event?
00:02:55.840 Was there a speech?
00:02:56.640 Was there a debate?
00:02:57.600 Was there a?
00:02:58.260 You know, it was interesting.
00:02:59.580 You know, actually, it's interesting you said that.
00:03:01.980 There was something called the Western Maryland Summit.
00:03:05.060 Western Maryland is arguably one of the more conservative areas in the state of Maryland.
00:03:10.260 I'd say probably about 77% in that area voted for Donald Trump in the last election.
00:03:17.520 And there was a summit that went out there.
00:03:19.320 In 2024.
00:03:19.900 In 2024, sorry, 2024.
00:03:21.860 And they have a summit every time there's a gubernatorial election, and they do a straw poll at the end.
00:03:27.520 And you go out there, you make your case, you talk about all the different things that you want to be able to do.
00:03:32.580 And it's kind of a bit of a bellwether as to where things are going to go, because this is not a traditional, really a democratic area.
00:03:38.300 and I ended up winning the straw poll and like basically like doubling the person who came in
00:03:45.900 second and part of it was because we just show up we went everywhere and part of you know we went
00:03:52.540 everywhere because people were like there's not a lot of democrats there but I was like yeah but
00:03:55.580 there's a lot of Marylanders and I want to be your governor too but also it's like I need to go places
00:03:59.960 where I can get any votes I can find because I didn't have a machine I didn't have I didn't come
00:04:05.500 from that background and when we won the western maryland straw poll i think people are like hold
00:04:12.560 on something's going on here 77 2024 and you won it that's exactly right so then you go general
00:04:19.300 obama then calls you because he sees that you could be formidable yeah well at your after after
00:04:23.220 we won the primary right i think that's when everybody everybody then kind of came home at
00:04:28.060 that point we're like well listen if he continues to run the race that he's running he's probably
00:04:32.680 going to be the next governor and so that's when people were like you know now we're going to come
00:04:36.980 in and endorse his campaign but that really did not happen because a lot of the establishment
00:04:41.740 democrats in many ways for the most part we had a couple here and there but it's like but for the
00:04:47.480 most part they supported other candidates did i read it correctly that in 1996 in a new york
00:04:53.280 times article that somehow some way they were interviewing 1996 you're 18 years old they're
00:04:58.620 interviewing you saying that you have interest in politics long term is that is is that a real
00:05:04.040 story it um i think i remember that article i mean honestly i don't know if i thought that or
00:05:10.520 had it as clear as that famous at 18 for new york no but how did that even happen did people know
00:05:15.260 you were going places like was it something where in high school they kind of knew there's something
00:05:19.060 very special about this young man well you know what happened was i was a pretty good basketball
00:05:22.900 player in high school and was getting recruited by colleges and all that kind of stuff. And I
00:05:29.040 decided to join the army out of high school. And it was kind of a curious thing. They're like,
00:05:34.840 you know, you have scholarship offers to go to colleges, but you chose to join the army at 17
00:05:40.040 years old. And it was kind of twofold for me. One was that, um, I was good, but I wasn't that good.
00:05:47.340 And like, for example, like I played against folks like, you know, Kobe Bryant was in my
00:05:52.020 same graduating class in Pennsylvania and we're in and you know he played out in the suburbs of
00:05:55.940 Philadelphia you played against them so yeah so yeah so not only I have a great Kobe Bryant story
00:05:59.820 about the time I actually first got to first got to meet him but you play against guys like that
00:06:03.500 you play against guys like you know Stephon Marbury who we're in the AAU circuit and you
00:06:08.400 just realize like they're just better like for them the game was easy for them the game was
00:06:13.980 smooth for me the game was hard and it was just so much easier for them so that was one thing
00:06:19.540 But the second thing was, I knew I wanted to lead soldiers.
00:06:24.540 Like, I was sent to a military school when I was probably 13, 14 years old.
00:06:29.560 And I hated it at first.
00:06:31.940 But it helped save my life.
00:06:34.180 And so I had a mandatory year in military school.
00:06:36.720 After that first year, my mother was like, all right, what do you want to do?
00:06:39.020 Because you're doing better in school.
00:06:40.560 Things are going well.
00:06:41.200 And I said, if it's okay, I'd like to sit tight.
00:06:43.620 I ended up finishing high school and military school.
00:06:46.460 I graduated as a cadet captain.
00:06:48.220 So I'm now 17 years old and I had 120 people under my command.
00:06:53.700 And when I thought about what I want to do in my life, I was like, you know what?
00:06:57.740 I think I want to lead soldiers.
00:06:59.920 And so I had a chance to go play basketball in college and get scholarship offers.
00:07:04.820 But I said, you know, actually, what I really like to do is I want to I want to join the army.
00:07:09.200 And that was, I think, the reason the New York Times and them found it to be such an interesting story,
00:07:14.500 because it's just not usually what a recruited high school basketball player does.
00:07:19.660 But that is such a great story.
00:07:21.540 To say at 18 years old, New York Times does a story.
00:07:24.340 You're being quoted in it.
00:07:25.740 I like to go into politics one day, and then you become the governor of the state.
00:07:29.020 You serve.
00:07:29.960 It's a phenomenal story on what you've done.
00:07:32.840 On Cal Shea, you're at 1.9%.
00:07:35.460 So if you were at 1% governor.
00:07:38.220 I'm already doing better.
00:07:39.260 That's right.
00:07:39.680 You're already doing better.
00:07:41.120 God is good, man.
00:07:42.260 There's a lot of people you talk to behind closed doors.
00:07:44.220 God is good.
00:07:44.720 They say Wes is an event away from being a leading candidate.
00:07:48.400 I don't know what that means.
00:07:49.420 He's an event away.
00:07:51.120 An event away, you know, whether it's a DNC,
00:07:54.800 whether it's a heated moment of rising up,
00:07:58.400 whether it's, you know, but right now, and by the way,
00:08:01.740 the reason why I think when I talk to Stephen A,
00:08:03.900 and we talk a lot about him politically, you know,
00:08:06.500 you want to run, we have a lot of these conversations privately,
00:08:08.740 and I love Stephen A.
00:08:09.980 We have a very, very good relationship together.
00:08:11.940 He's like a brother.
00:08:12.460 I mean, we are we are. But when it comes out, he's he really is a good dude.
00:08:17.260 I know he really is a good dude. Of course, his job, he has to push the envelope and he has a lot of enemies,
00:08:22.440 but he's comfortable in the limelight with the enemies, which we learned you need this after the last few elections that we've seen.
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