Moore comes to Biden’s defense over demands he step aside: ‘The president deserved better’

Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD) stood by President Joe Biden‘s side Sunday, arguing that he “deserved better” than having Democrats publicly call on the president to step aside as the presumptive nominee.

Moore criticized his fellow Democrats in an interview with ABC News’s This Week, claiming that calls for Biden to withdraw from nearly 40 congressional Democrats and Democratic donors hurt the administration. He said he agreed with Biden’s decision to withdraw but disagreed with the manner in which his party dealt with the issue.

“I had private conversations with the president. And I’m a big believer that when you care about somebody, you tell them the truth,” Moore said. “And I had private conversations where I was telling the president the truth.”

“I also know that the president deserved better than people who were running around him and going into public and demanding that the president of the United States step down, particularly when you look at the track record of the Biden-Harris administration,” the Maryland governor continued. “I’ve had a phenomenal partner in the Biden-Harris administration to be able to deliver the kind of results that we needed in Maryland. And so I knew that if he said that he was going to continue pushing forward, that I was going to stand with him.”

After Biden decided to not run for reelection, he endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the nominee. Her campaign brought in over $100 million between Sunday and Monday evening last week. Several voting blocs have held Zoom calls that brought thousands of attendees together to raise money for Harris, including “white women for Harris” and black women and men for Harris, as well.

Moore brushed off concerns about Harris’s short-lived presidential campaign back in 2020 when asked by co-anchor Martha Raddatz if anything “gives you pause.”

“I also know it was pretty long ago,” Moore said. “Since then, we’ve had an entire administration that people have had a chance to see her work. Throughout that time, we’ve had an entire period where people can see where we have historically low unemployment rates throughout our country. I think people are now seeing what a Harris leadership can look like and what it can bring to the future of the country.”

All eyes are now on Harris to see who her running mate will be, with several Democratic governors such as Roy Cooper (D-NC), Josh Shapiro (D-PA), and J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) on the shortlist.