Moulton becomes 20th Democrat to run for president
WASHINGTON — Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts congressman known for prioritizing veterans issues and for an unsuccessful push to unseat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, declared his bid for the White House on Monday.
In announcing his candidacy, Moulton becomes the 20th Democrat in the race.
In a campaign video, Moulton, 40, touted his experience as a Marine Corps veteran who served three tours in Iraq as an infantry officer before becoming an aide to Gen. David Petraeus, then the top U.S. commander in Iraq, during the troop surge in 2007.
Moulton has since been critical of the Iraq War and of U.S. involvement in the Middle East under President Donald Trump.
“I realized a lot of Americans are feeling betrayed by Washington, the same way we did in Iraq,” Moulton said in the video. “Ask anyone who’s lost their job to a changing economy or a child to opioids or has to choose between heat and food in the winter, they’re feeling forgotten.”
A member of the House Armed Services Committee, Moulton will run his campaign “through VFW halls” with a focus on national security issues, the 6th District Democrat told The Atlantic.
Moulton criticized Trump’s foreign policy as “erratic” and called for strengthening NATO and retiring outdated, expensive weapons systems on his campaign website.
Moulton has tapped Scott Eshom, a former Green Beret with the Army’s 5th Special Forces Group, as an organizer on veterans issues, and David Vorland, a former adviser in the Defense Department under President Barack Obama, as a foreign policy adviser.
Moulton is best known for an unsuccessful crusade to block Nancy Pelosi from the speaker’s gavel after the party won control of the chamber in 2018.
The congressman said the party needed “a new generation of leadership,” but eventually backed her.
