On March 1, the Daily sat down with U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat who is currently challenging two-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Edward Markey for the Democratic nomination in the upcoming Senate race.
Tufts Daily (TD): Could you start out by telling us a little bit about yourself?
Seth Moulton (SM): I’m the father of two little girls. I’m a congressman in Washington, D.C., and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. As someone who believes in serving our country, even putting my life on the line for our country, and someone with a very long view to the future, I feel like my horizon is about a century, given that my girls could very well be alive a century from now. That’s the perspective on service and on the future that I bring to my job every day.
TD: What is motivating you to run for Senate? What is lacking in the current Senate?
SM: Where do I begin? You can’t look at Washington today and say that things are working, especially for Democrats. And I just think we can’t afford to wait six more years for new leadership — the same old playbook, the same leaders that have gotten us a second term of [President Donald Trump], and he’s hurting a lot of people all across America. And so, to think that we should just keep doing the same thing and expect a different result — I mean, that’s Einstein’s definition of insanity. So, I don’t think the change can wait.
TD: The Democratic Party has been hemorrhaging young voters. What is your theory for why that has been happening, and do you think Democratic leadership — [House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries] and [Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer] — can help [the party] reverse those trends?
SM: Well, first of all, I’m not going to vote for Sen. Schumer if I’m elected to the Senate. I think we need new leaders from the top on down. … I might seem old to you, but I’m dragging down the average age in Congress, given I’m only 47, and so a lot of people ask me about reaching young voters.
I think there [are] two fundamental things you have to show young voters. One is that politics matters in your lives, and that’s probably easier to prove today with the horrific things this administration is doing all across the country. But sometimes people don’t understand, ‘OK, these people in Washington, they make decisions, but how does it really affect me?’ But the second thing you have to show young people is that you can make a difference in politics. You can have an effect on the leaders that we choose. And so if you look at my campaign, we have a lot of young people, because we’ve inspired this new generation of people to come out and say, ‘Yeah, we’re going to take responsibility for our future. … We’re going to take the reins ourselves.’ I’m very proud of my team.
TD: You cover a wide range of progressive issues in your policy platform. What is most important for you?
SM: I don’t think what matters is what’s most important to me. I think it matters what’s most important for the people that I want to represent. And the thing I hear time and again everywhere I go in Massachusetts is affordability, affordability, affordability. That’s why I’ve put forward the most aggressive, progressive affordability agenda … not just in this race, but of any elected official today. It plants the flag in the ground and says, ‘Health care, housing and education should just be human rights, not debatable.’ It’s just not acceptable to have anybody sleeping on the street, or not able to get a good education, or a good education for their kids or not be able to afford health care for their family. So, I have a very aggressive plan on that, you know, including paying for it, so we’re not passing the bill to you, but actually paying for it today with a national wealth tax on the mega, mega millionaires.
But that’s what I think we really need in America right now, and it touches a wide variety of issues. There’s not really one America today. There’s two Americas. There’s an America for the wealthy and the well-connected — with the vacation perks and the airline miles and the tax loopholes for your chosen careers and private equity and things like that. It’s an America that feels protected by the law, but not bound by it.
And then there’s an America for everyone else who’s struggling to pay rent, turning down their thermostats while it’s so cold outside this winter in New England, with the highest electricity bills in the country. And that’s an America that feels bound by the law, but not protected by it, which is exactly what I saw on the ground in Minneapolis. … So the point is, there’s an economic dimension to this, but there’s a legal, moral dimension to it as well. And if Democrats are really going to lead this country, we’ve got to show that we can bring those two Americas back together.
TD: Your colleague [U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna] recently told economist Paul Krugman that if [artificial intelligence] leads to widespread job displacement, he would support government intervention, including something like a federal job guarantee, to prevent mass unemployment and protect social cohesion. Do you agree that Congress should be preparing that kind of response, and would you co-sponsor legislation along those lines?
SM: Well, obviously any co-sponsored decision depends on the bill, but Ro Khanna and I work on a lot of stuff together. We actually sit next to each other on the China committee, and I think he’s absolutely right that we need to be prepared for massive disruptions in our economy. And intervention — you have to define what intervention means. But to me, it means being able to bail out people who just suddenly lose their jobs overnight. What if a new AI program comes out tomorrow that basically replaces every paralegal in the country? That’s not hard to imagine at all. Paralegals are already starting to lose their jobs to AI. And these are people who have invested a lot of time and effort and money in their careers. So they’re just all of a sudden out in the street with nothing to do.
You know, they’re not going to be able to move up in their careers by just upskilling, which used to be the response to these big economic disruptions like the Industrial Revolution. Then we’ve got to be prepared as a government to come in and bail people out. One of the fundamental things we would need to have if we want to do that is the money to do so, and so running massive deficits, as we are right now as a country, puts us in a really bad position to be able to respond to AI in that way. That’s definitely something we need to change. Of course, that’s been exacerbated by the One Big Beautiful Bill, but it’s not something Democrats talk about. I think Democrats should lead more on fiscal responsibility, because it’s actually quite key to these kinds of interventions that we would like to have.
TD: Sen. Bernie Sanders has called for a federal moratorium on [new data center construction]. Your opponent, [Sen. Markey], has been vocal about data center harms, but he has stopped short of endorsing a moratorium. Where do you stand: Should Congress pause data center construction?
SM: Pretending that AI is not going to happen is an incredibly backwards way to look at the world. AI is here. You all know that; it’s the reality of the future and America should lead in AI. That doesn’t mean that we should give free reign to the AI companies. I think there should be tight restrictions on what they’re able to do in our communities. And we can’t have data centers coming in and just raising everybody’s electricity bills and taking everybody’s water and everything else. But to basically cede leadership on AI to China would be incredibly dangerous to the United States of America, and that’s what we would be doing if we just prevented any data centers from being built here. We don’t need authoritarian regimes running AI.
TD: Massachusetts is being threatened by [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] activity. How are you preparing to lead the state in an adverse situation?
SM: I’ve been on the ground in Minneapolis, so I spent time there to understand: A) what was going on; B) what we need to do to be prepared … here in Massachusetts; C) to show some solidarity with the people of Minneapolis and Minnesota. And what I learned there is that there are a lot of things that many Minnesota residents did to prepare for this onslaught. Now, some of it was because they had just been trained with all the protests [for] George Floyd, but they’re very well organized and well prepared on the ground to fight back against what ICE has been doing. And frankly, … ICE would have been a lot more effective at rounding people up if the people of Minnesota hadn’t stood up in the way that they did. So, I wrote a long memo to the governor and the lieutenant governor about some of the specific practices that we learned. But the broad takeaway is that, if you care about this, go through training. There are training sessions where you can learn: How do you protest lawfully? What are the laws? How do you hold law enforcement accountable when they’re breaking the law? These are things that people can learn and be prepared for if ICE comes here next.
TD: As someone who served in Iraq, what do you say to young Americans who are worried about what conflict will happen? Would you vote ‘yes’ on a War Powers Resolution?
SM: No, absolutely not. I’ve been very clear that I’m not going to vote to authorize this war in Iran. And honestly, what I say to young Americans is you should be concerned, because I think this president is dragging us into a war with no plan, no clear objectives and a callous disregard for American lives.
As someone who has fought in a war that many of us disagreed with, it’s easy to forget, in the hallowed halls of Massachusetts colleges and universities, that it’s young Americans who are carrying this fight. I had a lot of 18-year-olds in my platoons. … Many people forget just how young our troops are that are on the front, that are fighting these wars.
And you should have a voice in these decisions that are being made, you should have a voice about whether we go to war, you should have a voice with your elected representatives about whether you want to fight in Iran. And you know, maybe someday someone will say, ‘Here’s a really good reason to risk your life for your country.’ And you can agree with that, but I certainly haven’t seen that from the president. He doesn’t even seem to be able to decide why we’re going there, from day to day.
