Angela Alsobrooks

On Tuesday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) said that President Donald Trump should “absolutely not” get credit for the Anduril Industries investment in Maryland, because “Baltimore is strong on its face.” But “we have to be careful” because Anduril is being used to build surveillance towers for Customs and Border Protection and autonomous weapons for the military.

Co-host Brianna Keilar asked, “This is an area that struggled when Bethlehem Steel closed, manufacturers left in the early 2010s. The President campaigned in Dundalk back in 2016, he promised to revive American manufacturing. Now you have new companies that are coming into this redevelopment of Sparrows Point. Does the President get to take some credit for that?”

Alsobrooks responded, “Oh, absolutely not, Baltimore is strong on its face. And the President really should — not only does he not get credit for attracting this economic opportunity to Maryland, but none of us should ever forget how he refused, for example, to bring FEMA to give flood relief when we deserved it. In the western, the most red part of our state was overrun with — we had a horrible flood there, and he refused to have the federal funds, the taxpayer dollars that our state residents pay for federal relief when we needed it. So we can’t count on him now. We can’t count on him ever. But our state is thriving nonetheless, and we’re going to continue to thrive.”

Later, Keilar asked Alsobrooks if she is “concerned that the Trump administration has committed hundreds of millions of dollars to this company to build autonomous munitions for the military and surveillance towers for CBP.”

Alsobrooks answered, “Well, I think that this is obviously something that has to be — we have to be careful about what the investment means. But, for now, my answer is the same: A $3 billion-plus investment in the state of Maryland, with 13,000 jobs, is important to our economy. And I think that’s going to be really important to the people of Maryland.”