Westbrook, MAINE – In the wake of Governor LePage today saying that he would send Maine’s National Guard troops to the border, the Maine Democratic Party called on Republican gubernatorial candidate Shawn Moody to say whether or not he agrees with the governor and would follow suit:

        “While other Republican governors are taking a stand against the Trump Administration’s inhumane policy of separating children from their parents, Governor LePage is doubling-down on his support of the president – going so far as to deny that children are being torn away from their parents and even volunteering Maine’s National Guard troops to help,” said Phil Bartlett, Chairman of the Maine Democratic Party. “Yesterday, Shawn Moody failed his first test of moral leadership by refusing to speak out against the Trump Administration’s child separation policy. So does he, like Governor LePage, deny children are being separated and would he, like LePage, also be willing to send Maine’s National Guard troops to the border?”

Republican Governors in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Maryland have all said that they would not send their states’ National Guard troops to the border to separate children from their parents. 

Earlier this year, Moody said he would take American troops returning from Iraq and other war-torn countries and “park” them at the border to stop the “illegals” that are “streaming over the border” and “bringing over guns, drugs”. He then endorsed President Trump’s billion-dollar border wall proposal, saying “that’s what I would’ve done in the short term to shore up our border.”

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