Maryland Gov. Wes Moore won't be attending a couple of bipartisan events during the National Governors Association's annual meeting in Washington later this month — and he wants you to know he thinks it's because he's Black.

The White House excluded Moore, along with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, from a dinner for governors and their spouses scheduled during the NGA's Feb. 19–21 winter meeting, CBS News reported. Separately, all Democratic governors were disinvited from a meeting with the president. Moore took to CNN's State of the Union on Sunday to air his grievance.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt kept it simple:

"These are White House events and the president can invite whomever he wants."

That's the whole story, legally and practically. The president hosts events at his residence. He sets the guest list. Full stop.

But Moore wanted more from the moment than a policy dispute. He wanted a narrative.

The Race Card, On Cue

Moore wasted no time elevating a dinner snub into a racial incident. On CNN, he offered this:

"It is not lost on me that I am the only Black governor, and I find that to be particularly painful considering the fact that the president is trying to exclude me from an organization that, not only have my peers asked me to lead, but also a place I know I belong in."

He doubled down in a separate statement:

"As the nation's only Black governor, I can't ignore that being singled out for exclusion from this bipartisan tradition carries an added weight, whether that was the intent or not."

Notice the construction: "whether that was the intent or not." Moore isn't claiming he has evidence of racial motivation. He's claiming that evidence is irrelevant — the accusation carries itself. This is the rhetorical framework that has made the term "racism" almost meaningless in American political discourse. You don't need proof. You don't even need intent. You just need proximity to the claim.

Jared Polis, who was excluded from the same dinner, is not Black. Moore didn't address that inconvenient detail. Every Democratic governor was cut from the meeting. Moore's treatment isn't unique — it's party-wide. But "Democratic governors disinvited from White House event" doesn't generate CNN segments the way racial grievance does.

A Pattern of Provocation

Moore frames himself as a reasonable bipartisan actor being punished for standing tall. He told CNN:

"I promised the people of my state I will work with anybody but will bow down to nobody. And I guess the President doesn't like that."

Stirring stuff. But the history between Moore and the White House tells a different story — one where Moore has repeatedly positioned himself as a foil to the administration, then expressed surprise when the administration treats him like one.

The friction traces back to at least August 2025, when President Trump called Baltimore a "hellhole" and threatened to deploy the National Guard to combat the city's crime crisis. Moore's response wasn't to address the substance — Baltimore was ranked the fourth most dangerous city in the country by U.S. News and World Report, behind only St. Louis, Oakland, and Memphis. Instead, he invited the president on a "public safety walk," a photo-op designed to signal that the criticism was unfair rather than engage with the data behind it.

Trump told Moore to "clean up this crime disaster" before considering a visit. He also posted on Truth Social about the Francis Scott Key Bridge reconstruction funding:

"I gave Wes Moore a lot of money to fix his demolished bridge. I will now have to rethink that decision???"

When asked about the bridge by a Forbes reporter, Trump said he'd been "very generous" on the funding after the 2024 collapse. The subtext was clear: Moore was cashing federal checks with one hand and throwing political jabs with the other.

Bipartisan When Convenient

Moore leaned hard into his NGA credentials on Sunday, noting that his fellow governors — Democrats and Republicans — elected him vice chair of the organization. He said:

"This is a bipartisan organization where Democratic and Republican governors come together to work on addressing the needs of our people."

He also claimed he led a productive bipartisan meeting at the White House just last week, focused on energy costs. So the White House was willing to work with Moore on policy days ago — but Moore wants you to believe the dinner exclusion is rooted in racial animus. Both things can't be true. Either the administration is willing to engage with him on substance, or it's trying to exile him because of his skin color. Moore wants to hold both cards simultaneously.

The NGA, for its part, drew a boundary. An internal email obtained by Politico confirmed that no NGA resources would support transportation to the White House events — a signal that the organization recognized the dinner and meeting as presidential prerogatives, not association functions. Moore himself acknowledged this on CNN:

"If the president wants to have a black-tie dinner with his friends on that night, that is fine, it will not be an NGA event."

So even by Moore's own admission, this isn't an NGA event. It's a White House dinner. And the White House sets its own guest list.

The Real Play

Moore is a young, ambitious governor in a deep-blue state with no electoral risk. He doesn't need bipartisan credentials to win in Maryland. What he needs is a national profile — the kind built on CNN hits, racial grievance narratives, and visible conflict with a Republican president.

Every element of Sunday's appearance was calibrated for that purpose. The invocation of race. The claim of institutional belonging. The defiant-but-wounded posture. This wasn't a governor solving problems for his constituents. This was an audition tape.

Meanwhile, Baltimore remains one of the most dangerous cities in America. The bridge is being rebuilt with federal money. And the governor of Maryland is on cable news talking about a dinner invitation.

Priorities tell you everything you need to know about a politician. Moore told you his on Sunday morning.