DIS GUY
Maryland's Governor Wes Moore is something else, tell you what.
And he's having another rough month, thanks to mostly self-inflicted miseries, the majority of which explode about his tiny head thanks to his peculiar penchant for tall tales and truth-stretching, which have nothing to do with the size of the fish he caught last week.
It's more a figurative case of claiming fish trophies when he's never owned a pole, less mind dropped a line in the water somewhere to strike scaly gold.
The governor with national aspirations has a whopper of a Walter Mitty complex he can't seem to get under control. There have been all these reputational eruptions around him lately that dent his image as a cool, competent customer to someone unfamiliar with what he's done to his state.
There had been a couple of years of controversy over his recollection that he was a Bronze Star recipient. When it had been definitively proven that he was not, his 'But they told me I was!' notwithstanding, the party powers that be rushed into action to make sure that that personal award was added retroactively to the governor's military record. That way he would no longer have to try to remember the truth when impulse struck to boast about his military accomplishments.
That awkward situation was easier to paper over than the next mess, which starts with Moore describing himself as 'a "foremost expert" on radical Islam thanks to his academic work at Oxford University.' Thanks to the tremendous legwork done by the Washington Free Beacon (Okay. They asked questions that should have been asked long ago, maybe by the...what was that bigshot D.C. paper again?), we now know that when queried for a copy of Moore's Oxford thesis, the university replied they didn't have one.
Neither they nor Moore's office could clear up when he completed his master's, when he was awarded the degree, when he submitted his thesis, nor even what the title of his rumored thesis was.
As you might imagine, even doing the investigative work to discover and expose the myriad inconsistencies in Moore's elite higher educational background earned the Free Beacon the coveted 'racist' title from Moore's spokesman.
...That's just the beginning of the peculiarities and inconsistencies surrounding Moore's graduate studies, which a spokesman for the governor, Ammar Moussa, dismissed—after several off-the-record conversations—by saying the Washington Free Beacon is not "engaged in journalism" and is "doing what they always do: manufacturing doubt about the accomplishments of a Black veteran, Rhodes Scholar, and public servant because it fits their narrative."
To my knowledge, the requested document has not yet been produced.
At the beginning of the month, that darn Free Beacon crew was at it again, tracking down another of the governor's well-worn tales to see how it held up under scrutiny.
Unsurprisingly, it kind of doesn't, but it's a story he uses constantly for his racial grievance card cred.
You see, according to Governor Moore, his great-great-grandfather was an Episcopal minister in South Carolina. In Moore's telling, this poor man was chased out of the country by the KKK for preaching about freedom and wound up fleeing for his life to Jamaica.
Dramatic, right?
Who wouldn't be proud to tell that story? Even make it a theme of your campaign.
*sigh*
What a pity Episcopals are such darn record-keeping fools. Always have been.
Maryland governor Wes Moore, who is widely expected to seek the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, has a powerful family story of racial injustice that he repeatedly tells during public speeches: His grandfather, as a small boy, fled 1920s Charleston with his family in the dead of night after his father—a prominent black minister and Moore's great-grandfather—angered the Ku Klux Klan with sermons condemning racism. Narrowly escaping a lynching, the family took refuge in Jamaica. But Moore's grandfather, just six years old at the time, vowed to return to America, where he eventually raised a grandson who made history in 2022 by becoming Maryland's first black governor.
It's a story straight out of Hollywood, and it was a central feature of Moore's 2022 campaign stump speech, in which he described a version of American patriotism wherein "loving your country does not mean lying about its history." Moore first told the tale of his exiled grandfather in a 2014 memoir and has since retold it countless times as he seeks to reclaim patriotism for the Democratic Party and to contextualize his own unlikely rise to power.
But there's a problem with Moore's story: It's flatly contradicted by historical records and is almost certainly false.
Moore's great-grandfather on his mother's side, the Rev. Josiah Johnson Thomas, did preach in the 1920s at a church in Pineville, S.C., about 65 miles north of Charleston. But historical records housed at the archives of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of South Carolina undercut the three main elements of Moore's story—that Thomas suddenly fled the country in secret, that he was targeted by the Ku Klux Klan, and that he was a prominent preacher who spoke from the pulpit against racism.
Detailed church archival records, as well as contemporary newspaper coverage, indicate that Thomas, a Jamaica native, on Dec. 13, 1924, made an orderly and public transfer from South Carolina to the island of his birth, where he was appointed to succeed a prominent Jamaican pastor who had died unexpectedly a week earlier, on Dec. 6, 1924. Amid the copious documentation of the life and career of Moore's great-grandfather, there is no mention of trouble with the Klan, which operated openly in 1920s South Carolina but never had a chapter operating out of Pineville, according to Virginia Commonwealth University's Mapping of the Second Ku Klux Klan.
Want to know why the Washington Post is dying? This is a perfect example. Maryland is the WaPo's backyard. Moore has been telling his fabulist lies for years. Why did the Free Beacon expose Moore now, while the WaPo never bothered to check any of Moore's claims – even while running for governor? Read it all.
Moore's office staff is totally sensitive about Grandpappy...
Wes Moore's comms director says I'm being "weird" for questioning the story his boss made the center of his 2022 political stump speech.
— Andrew Kerr (@AndrewKerrNC) February 10, 2026
If this makes me "weird," then so be it.https://t.co/1x2mPJeE0N https://t.co/Nbry9ifXiy pic.twitter.com/ORjwPuIZGj
...and the racists.
Then again, it's not Wes Moore's fault that there are so many racists, even if, like, there really aren't any.
Wes Moore is a hack and a liar and his KKK story doesn't hold up to scrutiny. pic.twitter.com/7ueuye8ut2
— Kyle Smith (@rkylesmith) February 4, 2026
But it didn't take the man another week to find a racist axe to grind.
The National Governors' Association (NGA) dinner is coming up. The event is hosted by the president at the White House, so that's who sends the invitations out.
And the fabulous fabulist, who is also the NGA's vice-chair, did get one in the mail, but the White House took it back.
Oh, Moore is in a serious snit, and Donald Trump is a racist.
...“This week, I learned that I was uninvited to this year’s National Governors Association dinner — a decades-long annual tradition meant to bring governors from both parties together to build bonds and celebrate a shared service to our citizens with the President of the United States,” Moore said in a statement Sunday. “… It’s hard not to see this decision as another example of blatant disrespect and a snub to the spirit of bipartisan federal-state partnership.”
...Moore also said on CNN that it was “not lost” on him that he is the only Black governor of a state.
“I find that to be particularly painful, considering the fact that the president is trying to exclude me from an organization that not only my peers have asked me to help to lead, but then also a place where I know I belong in,” he said. “I’m never in a room because of someone’s benevolence nor kindness. I’m not in a room because of a social experiment. I’m in the room because I belong there and the room was incomplete until I got there.”
The ego on dis guy.
The problem with 'they only left the black man out' routine is that Trump had taken the Jewish governor from Colorado off the invitation list, too.
So much for Moore's throwing the race card.
...According to the governors’ offices, the president also revoked invitations sent to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D), the NGA’s vice chair; and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) to attend a second White House event scheduled to occur around the summit: a dinner for governors.
...Eric Maruyama, a spokesperson for Polis, said the decision to exclude the Colorado governor was “disappointing.”
“Gov. Polis has always been willing to work with anyone across the political spectrum who wants to help work on the hardest problems facing Colorado and America, regardless of party or who occupies the White House,” Maruyama said in a statement.
Now, the two governors might not have religion or skin hue in common, but they both have vicious, anti-Trump, pro-sanctuary state policies and rhetoric they share.
Might that not be a common link?
I AM THE ONLY BLACK GOVERNOR IN THIS COUNTRY, AND I FIND THAT TO BE PARTICULARLY PAINFUL
Governor @GavinNewsom if Governor Wes Moore has been uninvited to the Governors Dinner by Donald Trump, no Governor should attend. Please stand with Governor Moore. pic.twitter.com/sJmdpLbeYi
— Marylin Bitner 🟧 (@marylinbitner) February 9, 2026
Naturally, that doesn't play well to Moore's racial grievance pandering, but it is what it is. Moore looks excessively dense, parading himself as a victim of anything other than his own resistance tactics.
What's going to make his blatant race-baiting look even worse is when and if other Democratic governors are 'uninvited,' as the WaPo seems to think they will be, since some were apparently not invited to begin with.
Trump plans to keep Democratic governors out of traditionally bipartisan meeting
The White House did not explain why Democrats were not invited to the meeting. In addition, at least two Democrats were uninvited to a White House dinner, according to their offices.
President Donald Trump plans to keep Democrats out of a traditionally bipartisan White House gathering of governors typically held as part of the National Governors Association’s annual Washington summit, the organization said.
Oh, man.
This is totally going to ruin Moore's whole schtick if every last Democrat gets Xed off the list.
Did you know Wes Moore was a black man?
Maryland Governor Wes Moore, the only Black governor in the United States, has been snubbed from the upcoming National Governors Association dinner at the White House. Read more: https://t.co/WmfRpJtuH7 pic.twitter.com/Kiz3CaHpV2
— TV One (@tvonetv) February 10, 2026
He's special.
You can almost hear the gears grinding from here.
The search for racists continues.
Beege UPDATES: Oh, jeeps and SURPRISE!
It turns out there's a little more to the 'Trump dissed the ONLY BLACK GOVERNOR IN AMERICA' story, and darn - you knew there had to be. Many Democratic governors are banding together to boycott the dinner in solidarity with the only black governor in the country.
Now remember - as Wes Moore said above, it's so painful to him to have been excluded. 'Particularly painful,' are his exact words.
Somehow, though, it wasn't as painful last year when Wes Moore didn't show up for that same dinner after being invited to the White House.
...It’s unclear why Polis and Moore were excluded from the dinner, but Leavitt said that Moore, the NGA’s vice chair, was invited last year and chose not to attend.
Well...hang on. That's kind of rude, isn't it?
I imagine the White House had second thoughts about giving the only black governor in the country another chance to grandstand and decided they'd had enough.
Here's some background on their feud this summer.
Moore was going to stay home anyway. He's not kidding anyone.
Editor's note: If we thought our job in pushing back against the Academia/media/Democrat censorship complex was over with the election, think again. This is going to be a long fight. If you want to join the conversation in the comments -- and support independent platforms -- why not join our VIP Membership program? Choose VIP to support Hot Air and access our premium content, VIP Gold to extend your access to all Townhall Media platforms and participate in this show, or VIP Platinum to get access to even more content and discounts on merchandise. Use the promo code FIGHT to join or to upgrade your existing membership level today, and get 60% off!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member