Valuetainment - May 05, 2026


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


Episode Stats


Length

9 minutes

Words per minute

204.00429

Word count

1,902

Sentence count

107


Summary

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

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
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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