Legislation, and inflation. Good evening and thank you for joining us. Tonight we will have a one hour debate featuring the top two contenders for maryland governor. This is a joint production. We would like to acknowledge those of you washing watching in washington and listening on the radio in baltimore. I will try to keep things on track as we explore the issues. I would like to introduce you to our panel of journalists. Pamela wood from the baltimore banner. Tracy wilkins in nbc washington. Alexis taylor represents the afroamerican newspapers. Jeff falcon of maryland public television. The debate will feature questions from student journalists for morgan state and salisbury university. Dan cox is the republican nominee for governor. Wes moore is the democratic elected nominee. Each candidate has the opportunity to use two make an opening statement. We randomly used marylands pick three from yesterday to determine who goes first. Good evening. This could be marylands moment. We have amazing people and incredible potential. I was raised by an immigrant single mom after my dad died. I joined the army and learned the basic principle, leave no one behind. As your governor, that will be the new mission for maryland. I understand you are concerned about paying groceries and bills. We can build an economy that works for everyone. I understand you are worried about safety in your own communities. We can work with communities and Law Enforcement to ensure public safety. I know you are concerned about your rights being stripped away. Maryland can protect abortion rights and Abortion Access. My name is wes moore. I am a combat veteran and Third Generation maryland or and i would be honored to have your support. Dan cox hello, maryland. It is an honor to be here to represent your interest. I am a husband and a father of 10 children. In the state house have served for many years and working as a Small Businessman, a rope on a farm and had to work my way through college. I understand the pain of putting food on a table. I stood with Governor Hogan to ensure our streets were safe and taxes were lower. I was on the governors crime Accountability Task force and worked for parental rights to make sure our children are safe and options are there for them. My opponent has sought to defund the police and to centralize education. I intend to put power back in the peoples hands. Jason our first question comes from pamela wood. 9 you have a history of promoting distrust in elections. Mr. Cox, that you worked as a lawyer on trumps behalf and cohosted buses to washington dc for his stop the steal rally. In maryland you just fought unsuccessfully a legal battle over how some ballots will be counted. Do you trust that marylands election system is accurate and should we believe you will honor and accept the Election Results . Dan cox i believe in our constitutional system. I have been working to do this in legislature and pledged to do as your next governor, to ensure that, democracy is at stake. I will continue to make sure procedures are honored. Reporter to follow up, i asked if you will accept the results of the election and if you believe there is integrity. I have always accepted Election Results that are fair and follow the constitution. At this point it would be similar to saying before surgery takes place to decide if the surgery went well. That is why the statute of maryland says there is a process that has to be followed and every candidate on the ballot has a right to that process. I intend to uphold that process. Reporter mr. Moore, given the statements and actions of your opponent, it is possible a meaningful number of marylanders will not believe the results of the election. What will you do to ensure detection integrity . Wes moore i am going to redo something. I am hosting to buses to the rally to help stop the steal. Demand no china biden. Those words are from my opponent. We have free, fair, Transparent Elections in our state. Never has the question of Election Integrity come up in the state of american of maryland that it will not come up in 2022. We are proud of the election process we have here. I will honor the results of the election and i hope my opponent will do the same. Reporter to my question, what more could be done to ensure public trust in the Election Results . Wes moore i think the public trust is there. We have an election system where we offer mailin ballots, early voting, offer day of. Early ballots should be counted prior. We have a remarkably transparent election system in our state and one that is irresponsible and dangerous to cast doubt on the election system in maryland. Dan cox . . May i respond . What is dangerous is my opponent who is ignoring state law. I have been seeking to uphold state law, exemplified even in my own county where a democrat candidate won an election by one vote and the certification process was denied. Because of the fact that there was a question as to the counting, that is the right of everyone on the ballot. That is the statute of the law. I have worked across the aisle to ensure our elections have integrity. I intends to uphold the law as we go forward. Reporter mr. Moore, i want to discuss why you only agree to one in person debate. The student paper from oregon state said it is unfortunate mr. Moore did not accept numerous invitations. Dan cox accuses you of running from him. How do you respond to those who feel you are snubbing the nominee . Wes moore i respond by saying i am excited to be here right now today debating dan cox. We have spent time going all over maryland, going to all jurisdictions, meeting voters where they are and we will spend voters at all hbcus because they will be important to the longterm vitality of our state. Why i decided to spend time with voters talking about issues they care about and while i am eager to have this debate with my opponent, the fact that even Governor Hogan says he will not support his candidacy and calls him unfit to lead should be a clear indication to voters about why i want to spend my time talking with voters instead of debating with dan cox. Reporter mr. Cox, if you lose will you build bridges . Dan cox absolutely. We need to be team players. The fact that i have stood with Governor Hogan indicates im the only one running for governor with experience and who has stood with Governor Hogans policies to lower taxes and crime while my opponent has proclaimed he wants to defund the police on salon. Com. This is the difference between us. He does not want to debate because he is a phony. So many things in his book are false. He claims he was raised in Baltimore City. He didnt live there until he was 34. Wes moore we are watching a perfect indication as to why the governor calls you unfit to lead and why he says he will not support delegate cox, i will not even give him a tour of the governors office. I am standing on stage right now with an extremist election denier whose rhetoric and policies are not just dangerous and divisive, but will take our nation and state backwards. My intention is to talk about issues maryland cares about like ensuring we have a 21st century Education System for our children, safe neighborhoods, an economy that grows and benefits everyone instead of delving into conspiracy theories that my opponent continues to throw out. Dan cox i think that is preposterous. This is outrageous and ridiculous. We are bigger then middle school namecalling. We have to get to the business of the state. I have toured the statehouse. Ive been working in annapolis for four years. I am running to restore opportunity, safety, affordability, freedom, education is my platform. That is what maryland wants. That is what i am experiencing with my own family and what we will bring to annapolis. Reporter as you both know, americans feel the effects of inflation. Residents of our state feel the pain at the Grocery Store and at the pump. Every race, creed, color is making tough decisions. For black marylanders, the effects are magnified. As mr. Moore pointed out, white families in maryland have eight times the wealth in the state as black families. What would you do to close the racial wealth gap . Not just talk about it. What would you do, what actions would you take to address this . Mr. Cox. Dan cox in terms of reparations, we want to make sure that people robbed of their business and wealth in the last two years because of the lock down, we are back in the position to prosper again. My opponent is talking about transferring wealth away from people because of their skin color. That is racist. I am a civil rights attorney. I am about equal justice for all of maryland, making opportunities. We need to make sure all maryland citizens have what they need to have an education. Its preposterous when you go to Baltimore City and the cry of everyones heart is we have to get our state back on track economically unsafe. That is my platform. Mr. Moore wants to undermine that. Wes moore the impact of Racial Disparity did not start two years ago, delegate cox. This has been a long term challenge that our state has to address. The fact that there is an 81 racial wealth gap in the state is not pretend. Its not because one group is working eight times harder. We have to address this issue. It impacts each of us. The racial wealth gap has caused this country 16 trillion in gdp and we have to focus on creating pathways for work, wages, wealth, having an Education System that teaches young people how to not just be employees, but employers. Increased wages and getting to a 15 minimum wage and increasing pathways for wealth and addressing unaffordable homes and unfair values in redline neighborhoods and a broken procurement laws we have. We have not come close. We have to move in a direction where we take meaningful and reparative action to address the economic gaps we see in our society. Jason we are going to keep moving. Reporter mr. Moore, student test scores nationally and in maryland are down. Are we doing the right things to help students catch up after the pandemic . Wes moore thank you. The answer is we need to do more. I have gone around the state and hear frustration from parents. I have an 11yearold daughter and eightyearold son. We have an unique opportunity to get this right when we have resources coming from the federal side that is earmarked toward educational support. We have to ensure that capital goes to things like afterschool and summer support and advanced tutoring and that we are properly implementing the blueprint for marilyns future. I was proud to work on it and our administration would fully fund and implement. I am proud of maryland teachers to you have backed my campaign so that we can move holistically to make sure that our children get the education they need to get. Dan cox i want to begin by mentioning the clarity of what we just heard. My opponent stated on record that he is for reparations. This is an extreme and inappropriate approach to healing the divide we know and love to see healed. That is what made Frederick Douglas great. They sought to use our constitution to advance freedom for everyone, not create division that my opponent says he will enforce with a redistribution of wealth. It is appalling and reflects the education question because that is part of his education program. That will not give us a worldclass education. We need to get back to reading, writing, as arithmetic, stem education. Part of my platform is to make sure schools turn on the hvac and it works. We will store restore worldclass education in maryland. Wes moore when asked about education, you said i said something i did not say. This is part of a dangerous rhetoric that will move our state backwards. I honor what Governor Hogan said about you being unfit. You are putting that on full display. Jason there is back and forth listen to some college student. We have journalism students from saulsberry university. How will guncontrol and Crime ConventionCrime Prevention intersect under your administration . Dan cox its important that we get the guns off the streets that are being used illegally for crimes. Mr. Moore and his team supported decriminalizing much of this and refused, the approach, their approach was to refuse the appellant felony approach that if you commit a crime, they want you to run the streets. We are going to bring back law and order and the safety on our streets that everyone is crying out for. Wes moore thank you for the question. It is incredibly important because there is no higher priority than public safety. People need to feel safe in their own communities and homes and skin. I think about what my opponent said i said, which i didnt say, and how my opponent likes to say he backs the blue. The irony is the blue does not back you. Police have endorsed our campaign. So the things we will do in partnership in our communities are ensure we can get and keep illegal guns off our street and get and keep violent offenders off our street. There is an Important Role the state plays in that and in making sure we have a strong probation system. Parole system. It is understaffed and we have to fix it so we can put state resources to make sure we provide support for violence intervention and Interruption Program that show impact because those closest to the challenge are often close to the solution. We have to have a state that works in partnership with jurisdictions and with federal counterparts to ensure we get and keep illegal guns off the streets and violent offenders out of our neighborhoods. Dan cox mr. Moore has long worked with open society and they came to my committee and i have a record of serving and protecting the blue and serving in my community to defend them because mr. Moore and his team came in and saw two defund the police in my community. That is what the open Society People come that nonprofits wanted to reimagine policing against you and i. I thought it and we stopped it. I will find the police and that is why sheriffs and officers on duty support me. We will make sure our streets are safe again. We will never say like mr. Moore said on salon. Com, look it up, he wants to defund the police and indict the system. Jason this is where we keep moving. Wes moore its not true. I am a student political reporter at morgan state university. Now that maryland and hbcus have made a settlement, what are further steps you think the state should take to further assist the hbcus in the area . Dan cox thank you for that question. We have reached a settlement that was long overdue. We need to make sure the grounds , why the settlement was reached in the first place, were honored. This was about giving and unfair advantage to institutions that were not hbcus but the process is still happening. We have to ensure the grounds for the settlement are being honored and that this is not just about the initial sentiment. When you have four of the top hbcus in america, it helps address challenges we see about how we create pipelines in the nursing industry and Education System and entrepreneur growth and focusing on new industry, solar and wind technology, cyber. We should be leveraging the genius of our hbcu students and make it a core part of marilyns growth story. Dan cox unlike my opponent i actually went to the hbcu at morgan state and i spoke with students and one thing i said and i believe, this is why i voted for our hbcus to receive funding but we need to expand programs for all of them to have Tech Opportunities and opportunities for certification but most importantly i actually went to college myself in a program and i know how hard it is to make up the gap in your tuition. And yet many times hbcus have the funding levels differentiated, thinking they are receiving more funds than other universities in the state but that is not the case. We need to make sure we equalize the funding of the university to make sure the money gets to the students so they dont have to drop out like so many students and hbcus end up doing. Reporter access to abortion care is protected by maryland law, but not by national law. Depending on the outcome of the election and make up of congress, there could be a proposal for a national ban on abortion or National Protection for it. As governor, what would be your position on National Abortion legislation, and when you get involved in the National Debate on behalf of maryland . Dan cox im focused on being the governor of maryland and i would make sure everything worked on in maryland reflects the interest and values of the people. I am prolife. I have a special needs son. I fought on the house floor for the down syndrome protection act. I want to ensure everyone is safe. Women and children and the unborn have equal protection and are supported by our laws. When you look at the National Debate turns back to the states, we have one of the most liberal abortion laws in the country and i think as governor there is very little i can do to override or change that. The idea that has come from my opponent that i am somehow dangerous to Womens Health care is false and absolutely not true. Wes moore i believe abortion is health care and fully trust women to make the decision with their doctors. I want maryland to be a sea of haven and i backed that last fall for a constitutional amendment and if i become governor i will back it again. This is not just a national issue. It is an issue for marilyns women who want marilyns women marylands women who want their health care to be protected. My opponent prays to the Supreme Court and donald trump. Praised the Supreme Court and donald trump. He will criminalize abortion even in the cases of incest and rape. He says even when the womens, the mothers life is at risk, h