Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton of the 6th Massachusetts District is a candidate in this year’s Senate primary. The 10-year veteran of congress is an Iraq War veteran and Harvard graduate, and says his campaign to oust incumbent Ed Markey is one of generational turnover.
Moulton, 47, says the challenges Democrats face during the second Trump administration are too much for a third six-year term from 79-year-old Markey, whose congressional career stretches back fifty years.
The third contender in the race is Alex Rikleen, a former history teacher and progressive who maintains that neither Moulton nor Markey are doing enough to resist Trump.
Over the course of a long interview with WAMC, Moulton answered questions about some of the biggest political issues of 2026.
WAMC: So, I want to turn to your colleague, Congressman Richard Neal. He is, of course, also seeking reelection this year. Congressman Neal is 76, he's been in office since 1989, which precedes my existence on earth, certainly. I'm interested in your thoughts on that, this concept of generational change and an opportunity for a new generation to step up- I mean, Congressman Neal is certainly hand in hand with Ed Markey generationally speaking- What are your thoughts on Richard Neal's continued pursuit of power and continued pursuit of reelection into Congress?
Well, I mean, look, these are decisions for the people of his district to make. And if someone wants to challenge Richie Neal, then I think that that challenge should be welcomed, and I suspect that Richie Neal would welcome it too. He had a tough primary a few years ago, and he got out there and he campaigned hard and he won, and that's what our democracy should be all about. It's also worth saying that that Richie Neal serves two positions that are that are quite important. One, he's a dean of our delegation. He does a fantastic job in that in that position, making sure that that we are aligned as much as possible, using the full weight of our delegation powers in DC when we're united to get things done for Massachusetts. He's also the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee which sets tax policy. And I'll tell you what- I mean, I have several friends who serve on the Ways and Means Committee under Richie Neal's leadership, and they have nothing but extraordinary things to say about him. So, there's something to be said for having the most senior member of our delegation, and the power that that that brings. I'm, of course, running against the junior senator in in our delegation, and I think that we're going to have a good debate in this race. And there's certainly, if there are some promising candidates that run against Richie Neal, then I'm sure that the people of Western Massachusetts will have a healthy debate about the future of that representation in Congress as well.
Well, another concept of pushing back against the establishment- I mean, at times, Richie Neal has been the top corporate PAC support getter across both major parties in Congress. I mean, when we talk about money in politics, it would be impossible to not acknowledge that Richie Neal has distinguished himself on that level. And certainly, I think, with [choosing to return and no longer accept] AIPAC donations, you are making these moves to be very conscientious in a way that many Democrats are not about who supports you and how they support you. I mean, any thoughts on that, though? Because, again, at times in these congressional cycles, Richie Neal has been the poster candidate for someone who relies on corporate PAC money to fundraise.
Look, I don't think that we should have this kind of money in our politics. And I think that we should have fundamental campaign finance reform. I also think it's important the Democrats don't unilaterally disarm against the Republicans when we got to win these elections, and we know that they're taking advantage of these funding resources. So, what I have proposed is a transformative piece of campaign finance legislation that would actually tie campaign finance reform, something that's very popular with Democrats, but not so much with Republicans, to term limits for members of Congress, something that tends to be more popular with Republicans than with Democrats. It turns out that both campaign finance reform and term limits are wildly popular with the American people that we’re supposed to represent. So, we could both do these things. Democrats and Republicans would have to make some compromises, Republicans on campaign finance reform and Democrats on term limits, and do something that the American people would fundamentally support and might actually raise the esteem of Congress from its abysmal lows right now. So, I think that's the kind of reform that we ought to have. The question, I think, voters need to ask about Richie Neal or anyone else who takes corporate PAC donations, is, are you actually voting in corporate PAC interests, right? I mean, that's really the question. Are you using these, are these campaign donations, whether they're from corporate PACs or just any other wealthy donor- I mean, what if there's just some billionaire in Western Massachusetts that wants some pet project done, and they give to a campaign, and then that politician just goes and pursues that pet project? I mean, these are questions that voters really need to ask, because they're fundamentally questions about who you're beholden to. Are you working for the people that you represent? Are you there to work for them, or are you working for the big donors that that have undue influence on our politics?
It's worth noting that when it comes to Neal and the Ways and Means Committee and then the corporate tax code, there are correlations between that position and the fact that massive corporations like Amazon, who have supported Richie Neal, have paid very little taxes at the same time during his tenure. So, I think that exact correlation is part of what I'm trying to thread the needle on here.
Yeah, no, it's a good question. I mean, look, I don't know all the details. I certainly think that it's absurd that Amazon, which is like, the most successful corporation in America pays lower taxes than most Americans- I mean, you and I probably pay a higher tax rate than Amazon. How insane is that? But I will also say this, that if you look at Democrats on the on the Ways and Means Committee, it's the Democrats under Richie Neal's leadership who have been consistently pushing in the opposite direction, and it's Republicans who keep giving corporations these corporate tax breaks, it’s Republicans that keep lowering the corporate tax rate. They give all these favors to individual businesses. In fact, even just the Trump administration, by its own administrative actions, has already given about one $50 billion worth of tax breaks to the wealthy in America, wealthy corporations, wealthy connected individuals, people who can afford private planes and private yachts and things like that. They've already gotten $250 billion in tax breaks from this administration, not even going through Congress, but just by their own administrative actions with the with the IRS. It's an interesting number to me, because $250 billion would put a massive dent- That would basically build us a national high speed rail network. I mean, you could still expand it even beyond that, but $250 billion would basically build us a national high speed rail network. And that's the amount of tax breaks that this Republican administration has given to their billionaire donors just in the first year.
I would be remiss to not ask about one of the biggest political stories of the last several years, the ongoing fallout of the Epstein file revelations and talk about establishment figures appearing in an extremely compromising and disturbing setting. We're seeing Bill Clinton, we're seeing Donald Trump, we're seeing a lot of the major names in American politics tied into, again, one of the more disturbing and upsetting political stories maybe in American political history. What are your thoughts on the ongoing ramifications of that? It's certainly something that's been thrown back and forth between the parties with various accusations of it being politicized, but certainly it's this massive unanswered question right now in American politics. What are your thoughts on it?
We deserve to know the truth. The American people deserve to know the truth, and most of all, the victims of these heinous crimes deserve justice, and justice starts with truth. And that's why we have to release the Epstein files, and that's why we got to hold Trump and anyone else, whether they're Democrats or Republicans, no matter what their political stripes, accountable for these crimes. You know, I got in a little bit of trouble myself with some people pushing back about some comments I made a few weeks ago on Morning Joe, when I was interviewed on MSNBC, and I said, look, it's pretty obvious that Trump is in the Epstein files, and this was before they had been released in the troves that's been released recently. And Joe Scarborough, the host of the show, kind of jumped down my throat and said, well, there's no evidence of that, there's no evidence that Trump did this or this or that. Of course, just a week or two later, the new trove of files came out, and Trump was all over them. But it was interesting. I had a conversation with several, again, establishment Democrats, more senior members of our party, just before I went on that show, and I said, you know, I'm thinking about being pretty blunt here, and just, let's be honest about how broken this is- I don't know, I wouldn't say that, I wouldn't go that far, it's a little bit a little bit soon, and sure, there were definitely people who pushed back on those comments, but I stood by them. They proved to be true. I think they were, again, just kind of stating the obvious. I mean, we all knew that Trump was clearly in the Epstein files- Otherwise, he wouldn't have been so defensive about them. And they're just an example, again, of how the wealthy and the well-connected just seem to play by a different set of rules in America. Because we all know that if you were just a middle-class father in Western Massachusetts and you had done this stuff, you'd be in prison. You wouldn't be getting pardoned, you wouldn't be able to have the Justice Department take your name, redact your name out of file, so that they won't offend you. But that's what's happening, and it's a symptom of the fact that I think there's really this broad issue, which is that they're really two Americas today. There's an America for the wealthy and the well connected, the billionaires and their pals. They get all the tax breaks, they get the free vacations with their airline miles, they get their tax breaks on private planes. In fact, if they go run afoul of the law, they can even fly to the White House and just pay the presidential campaign with Donald Trump a bunch of money, and you'll get a presidential pardon. And then there's an America for everybody else in America, for people who, right now, are worried about affording rent at the other the month, an America, for people, I mean, who just looked at their electricity bill, as I did a few years ago, and it was the highest electricity bill I've ever seen in my life, an America, for people who don't think that they're going to reach the American Dream, an America that plays by a different set of rules that doesn't get all the perks and the breaks and the pardons that the well-connected get. And those two Americas are one of the examples of the real divide in this country today. Trump is making that a lot worse. He's making the rich richer and the poor poorer. He's making even the middle class be unable to afford health care. Democratic leadership, real Democratic leadership would be more effective at fighting Trump, but it would also serve to finally bring America back together again, to remind us of our core values, that we should be a country that ensures the American Dream for all that doesn't just protect the billionaires, the oligarchs like you see in countries like Russia and corrupt regimes even like Venezuela, frankly, that actually supports the little guy, that lets the people who haven't had a chance, like the kid who just came out of Iraq serving in the Marine Corps and wanted to run for Congress to better represent his district in Massachusetts, and actually got a chance to do that, even though the Democratic establishment tried to push me out of that race. That's the America that we've got to get back to, an America that's less polarized and more united, that remembers our core values, that follows the Constitution, and ensures that the law applies to everyone, whether you're the president of the United States or you're an immigrant who just arrived on our shores, the law applies equally to everyone. That's the America we've got to get back to.
Well, you sort of have a foot in multiple camps here, which I think is very interesting. You yourself are a Harvard graduate, you're part of the Democratic Party. Certainly, the Bill Clinton, the Larry Summers of it all when it comes to the Epstein files, I mean, how does that- That must be a disconcerting feeling knowing that these are worlds that you have traveled in that are also impacted by this unfolding scandal.
Yes, it's a good question. It's not disconcerting for me at all, because I've just never been a part of that establishment. I've always been willing to challenge it and run against it, and sometimes that makes me an outsider. It's not always popular, you know? I mean, frankly, there's a lot of energy right now for challenging the establishment, for doing better, for bringing a new generation of leadership. But that hasn't always been the case, that hasn't always been the case. I got a lot of pushback when I sort of went out the side of the Democratic Party to recruit my own candidates [in 2018] that I thought could do a better job of flipping these Republican seats, and it ended up working out really well. And the Democratic Party sort of, brought all these folks into the into the fold, and that's why you see them doing so well in elections across the country, like, like Governor [Abigail] Spanberger, Governor [Mikie] Sherrill, Senator Elissa Slotkin and others. So frankly, look, we got to hold everybody accountable. My service, fundamentally, comes back to my experience in the Marines. I signed up to serve in the Marines because I thought that even kids who got to go to a place like Harvard ought to do their part, and I didn't ever want someone going in my place to fight for my freedom. So even in the midst of a war I disagreed with, I was proud to go and serve so that other Americans didn't have to. And those young Americans that I served with, Americans from all over the country with different backgrounds and different educations, different political beliefs, different religious beliefs, different sexual orientations, we all came together to put aside those differences, and do what's right for our country. It was an incredibly diverse experience serving in the Marines, but we were united by our common values, and that's ultimately why I decided to run for Congress. I didn't have any politics in my background. In fact, when I got out of grad school that I was able to go to on the GI Bill, the first job I took was down in Dallas, working on a high-speed rail project. And you know, you don't move to Dallas if you're planning to run for office Massachusetts. But I thought back to those Marines I served with. I thought back to way to the ways that Washington had let us down when we were in Iraq. And I thought back to a conversation I had with a corporal in my platoon one day. It was a tough day in Iraq, we'd had a pretty rough go of it, and he looked up at me, and he said, you know, sir, you ought to run for Congress someday, so that this stuff doesn't happen again. Now he used a marine term for ‘stuff’ that's not appropriate for NPR, but you know what I mean. And I knew what he meant, and I decided that, you know what, I’ve got to try to do my part. And so that's why I ran for Congress the first time in this long shot race against a nine-term incumbent, and that same feeling that we can't just set sit aside, we can't sit down and wait, we can't afford six more years under the same leadership when we've got to do better in America. We've got to do better in our own party, because that's the only way we're going to put a check on Donald Trump and stop this heinous business that he's carrying out all over Massachusetts, all over America, and hurting a lot of people. That's that theme of willingness to step up and fight for change when I think we need it that drives me to take on Senator Markey. Senator Markey has been a great senator. He’s served our Commonwealth for a long time, he's been in office for about a half a century, but I do think it's time for a new generation of leaders. I think it's a new generation of leaders across the Democratic Party that really drive us forward to more progressive policies, to a more progressive politics, to a politics that serves more people better, and that ultimately wins elections all across Massachusetts and all across the country. And so, I think back to those Marines, and they're what keep me grounded. I don't know if I've ever met Bill Clinton. He’s obviously someone that was a great Democratic leader for some time, but frankly, if Bill Clinton broke the law, then he should be held accountable just like Donald Trump or anybody else in this country.
Congressman Moulton, thank you so much for your time today.
I appreciate it too. Thanks for asking, asking the tough questions. I'm always happy to have a good conversation, so I hope to see you again soon.
