Wes Moore didn't want combat with Trump. But he's embracing the fight.

WASHINGTON — Maryland Gov. Wes Moore says he has no desire to be combative with President Donald Trump.

He also doesn't think that attacking the sitting president is the best way for his party to win back swing voters who defaulted to the Republican politician in the last presidential election.

But nevertheless, the Army veteran is choosing to embrace the fight after finding himself at the center of a high-profile skirmish with Trump.

"I have no desire of being combative with the President of the United States, but I also have no desire of watching my people be attacked," Moore told USA TODAY in an interview. "I fight for my people. I defend my people. And when I'm watching someone attack my people, I have no problem returning fire."

The nation's only Black governor and one of the Democratic Party's most up-and-coming politicians, Moore took pains during the first year of Trump's second term to avoid clashing with the president whenever possible. He says he didn't see the point.

But then the president excluded him from a historically bipartisan meeting at the White House for the nation's governors and blamed Moore for one of the largest sewage spills in the nation's history.

Moore governs one of the bluest states in the country. He beat his Republican opponent by more than 30 points in his gubernatorial election. Democrats have a trifecta in Maryland, where they have majorities in both chambers of the state Legislature and hold the state's top-ranking executive positions. He'll be on the ballot again this fall and is expected to easily win reelection.

Yet he has been decidedly less fiery when it comes to confronting Trump than some of his peers, namely California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who's set to leave office early next year, and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, whose competing for a third term. Newsom has dedicated his press office's X account to trolling the sitting president, and Pritzker has aggressively taken Trump head-on.

A political novice who had never run for elected office before his 2022 bid to become Maryland's governor, Moore has been less bombastic and more careful with his rhetoric.

He said this month that it’s “not lost” on him that he's the only Black governor in the nation and he was excluded from what traditionally had been a bipartisan dinner for governors at the White House. But asked directly during a town hall on CBS News if he believes Trump is a racist, he declined to call him one and said the president's actions speak for themselves.

"I can't speak to the president's heart. I can't speak to what he feels or what he says behind closed doors when I or others are not around. But I can speak to his actions, and I can speak to how his actions hit members of our community, members of the Black community," Moore told USA TODAY.

He accused Trump of slashing grants for historically Black colleges and universities, known as HBCUs, to which the administration gave a one-time funding boost after cutting other programs. He also accused the president of fueling a spike in Black female unemployment and backing book bans.

"I can tell you that his actions are speaking a whole lot louder than maybe he understands or realize about does he really − does he really support every community in this country, or does he support the friends he's giving tax cuts to while the rest of us just end up carrying the bag for the rest of his policies?" Moore said.

Moore brought up a widely criticized video Trump posted to social media that depicted former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, as apes later in the interview in response to a question about what Trump had done for Black Americans.

"It's a question for President Trump. I could not give you an answer off top," Moore said. "I've seen what I've seen just during Black History Month."

The White House originally defended the clip, but Trump opted to take it down after Republicans such as South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the Senate's only Black Republican, condemned it as racist.

Moore hits Trump for Obama video, Black unemployment rate

Trump was holding a reception at the White House that honored Black Americans at the time of the interview with Moore Feb. 18. He paid his respects at the event to civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who had died the day before, and awarded his first-term Housing and Urban Development secretary, Ben Carson, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest available award for a U.S. civilian.

"I'm glad that he's holding an event now. I hope he addresses why he thought it was appropriate or funny to do a video calling the former first family that depicted them as apes. I hope he's willing to speak about the policies that he has put in place that has made Black unemployment in this country spike since he's become the president of the United States," Moore said. "I hope to hear that he thinks that Black history is worth celebrating and lifting up, because I think his policies have not shown that."

It was the furthest that Moore would go in criticizing Trump, who won't be on the ballot this fall and is term-limited as president.

Moore said attacking Trump is not the best way for Democrats to bring middle-of-the-road Americans who have abandoned the party in recent years back into the fold.

"I don't, because actually I think that this is not about President Trump. This is the people we represent. I can't speak to what other folks do, governors or everywhere else, but that's never my desire," Moore said.

"And oftentimes when you're looking into policies, it does mean push back against this administration," he added.

He offered Republican cuts to food assistance through the president's tax cut and spending law and the administration's slashing of the federal workforce as examples of times of when he felt he had to challenge Trump to protect the residents of his state.

"But I don't want to spend all my time pushing back. I want to spend my time actually pushing forward and coming up with new ways for the country to see that the state of Maryland is showing that there is just a better way and that there's a better path."

His advice for Democrats: Look beyond the base

So how does he think Democrats can apply that approach across the county?

"Well, I think we've actually got to show up and care about it," he said.

Democrats cannot fall into a pattern of visiting only the areas where they can juice their base, Moore explained.

"They'll go to the same places with the same lines, talking to the same people and hope that you can get people to show up. I just don't think that's the answer," he said. "I think that the answer is you go everywhere and you speak to everyone, and whether they vote for you or not, that's that's on them. But they can never say that you didn't try."

That's what Moore says he'll be doing this fall as he competes for reelection as governor of Maryland, a job he says he's not looking past to a potential presidential run.

"I'm not one of these people that's been in this business for 20 and 25 years going from job to job to job and is thinking about what you want to do next. I'm someone who ran for office for the first time in my life because there were things that I wanted to accomplish for my state.

"And I just think that there's more work to do."