Best Recruiter

‘The Best Recruiter Out There Is Our Commander In Chief’

Rep. Seth Moulton is amassing an army of service-oriented Dem candidates. His goal isn’t simply to defeat Trump; it’s to change politics—and maybe form his own national campaign in the process.

By EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE

To some, he’s a model of service and the future of politics. To others, he’s just self-serving.

To the group of now 35 Democratic candidates he’s backing, Congressman Seth Moulton is an essential part of building a network of support and raising the money they believe will help them win in November.

This week, the Massachusetts Democrat will announce a new round of endorsements from his Serve America PAC, which was formed with the aim of endorsing and supporting candidates who’ve served in the armed forces. The endorsements will expand the footprint of Moulton’s PAC beyond congressional races—stepping in for candidates for mayor, state legislature and even agriculture commissioner—and broaden its definition of service to include veterans of AmeriCorps, City Year and the Peace Corps, who demonstrate a commitment to giving back to their communities in other ways, said Moulton.

“A couple of friends of mine, I encouraged to run, and a few people reached out to me,” Moulton said, “but the best recruiter out there isn’t Seth Moulton. The best recruiter out there is our commander in chief, Donald Trump,” Moulton told me in an interview for the latest episode of POLITICO’s Off Message podcast. “He’s the one who is convincing so many veterans who served the country before to decide to serve the country again.”

Moulton, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq, says the backlash against Trump isn’t just coming from veterans; he’s hearing it from those currently enlisted in the armed forces. “I’ve talked to a lot of troops who don’t want to see him,” Moulton said when asked about the fact Trump hasn’t met with active-duty troops, as has been a tradition for presidents from both political parties. “You want to have a commander in chief that you look up to.”

Moulton has been traveling the country and meeting with donors in a way that has stoked speculation that he could be that kind of commander in chief, and that by increasing the number of races in which he’s playing an active role, he’s quietly building the organization required for a national campaign.

“I’m flattered that some people have suggested that, but it should not be what we’re talking about right now,” is all Moulton would say.

The only thing Moulton rules out about his own political future: He says he will not run to replace Nancy Pelosi as the leader of the House Democrats, even as her prospective ouster is a cause that sprung him to national attention. He doesn’t rule out running for the U.S. Senate—though there are no clear openings—or for governor—though he skipped a run this year, and would have to wait until 2022.

He’s already become a beloved mentor to veterans running, who gush about him. “He represents a hope for leadership in the party where a lot of people feel like there isn’t one,” said Pat Ryan, an Army vet running in Tuesday’s Democratic primary to go up against Congressman John Faso (R-N.Y.), and who brought Moulton in for a final GOTV rally on Monday.

Between his own campaign and the Serve America PAC, Moulton raised $2.1 million in just the first quarter of the year and turned around $1.4 million of that to other candidates and campaigns. He’s raised more money than any House Democrat not in leadership—and according to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee report sent around to members Monday, he raised $1.9 million for the current cycle through May: more than anyone other than Pelosi and DCCC chair Rep. Ben Ray Luján, who both get to claim credit for all the money raised at any fundraiser they attend. Moulton was $100,000 ahead of Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and $300,000 ahead of Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), who’s looking at a run for leader.

He’ll kick off a new phase of campaign travel by the end of the week on trips to Michigan and Ohio, with more stops to come. And he is trying to nurture a community of activism by hosting four in-person meetings of his endorsed candidates, collaborating on joint fundraisers and sharing donor lists, deploying staff to knock on doors and help create a network of text messages pushing people to vote—even creating a Slack channel on which many of the Moulton-backed candidates keep in constant touch, with conversations branching off into a series of ongoing email threads and phone calls among each other.

“It’s the movement that Seth has helped shepherd,” said Ken Harbaugh, a former Navy pilot now running against Congressman Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio).

That’s not how many top Democrats, particularly in Washington, feel about Moulton—and not just the ones who are mad he dared take on Pelosi. They see him as too slick, superficial, pushing causes to help only his own ambitions. Off the record, they’ll trash him, say that he complains but offers no solutions—like in bashing Democrats for not having an economic message, then proposing an alternative rooted in job training and preparing for how much automation will change the workforce, which sounds pretty much like what Democrats are saying already. Even some of his own allies in the House shake their head at the way he often pokes up in front of the cameras with a complaint and then disappears before the follow-up questions, or laughs privately at moves like proposing to his now wife on the Speaker’s Balcony at the Capitol and then tweeting about it.

The distaste for him can be intense.

“He only attacks Nancy Pelosi to get on TV. He couldn’t get booked before that,” said one senior Democratic aide. “He has virtually no legislative accomplishments, doesn’t come to meetings. Goes on TV and spouts bullshit. Doesn’t even know what he’s talking about.”

Moulton talks about deciding to enlist in the Marine Corps a few months before the September 11 attacks, after spending so many Sundays in the chapel as an undergrad at Harvard, looking at the memorial wall of names of previous students who’d died in wars. He says that anyone who says that he’s just out to build his own brand isn’t paying attention to who he is and what he’s done.

“I think it’s just a good way to attack me and I mean … to be honest, it kind of is a good way to attack me, because it just hurts because nothing could be farther from the truth,” Moulton said. “I didn’t sign up for the Marines because I was looking for a good or easy job for myself. I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do for my country.”

His arguments, though, can be inconsistent. In his calls to push out Pelosi, he says “it’s time for a new generation of leadership in the party,” but when asked if that argument applies when it comes to the potential 2020 candidacy of former Vice President Joe Biden, 75, with whom he’s developed a close relationship, Moulton said, “I’m not going to discriminate based on age.”

“Look, one of the reasons [Biden] took some time to mentor me is because he said, ‘We need new Democrats, too. We need new people to come up,’” Moulton said. “So I think when I go around the country, I hear a lot of Democrats all over America say, ‘Yes, it’s time for a new generation of leadership. Yes, the Republicans are terrible, Trump is awful, and the Republicans in Congress won’t stand up to him. But we need some new leadership in our party as well.’”

There’s similar parsing on the question of impeaching Trump, who he says “puts our national security at risk. I think he’s demeaned us across the world, he’s not following our Constitution, certainly not following our values. I think he’s a very dangerous president,” and suggests he would have been kicked out of the military for lacking integrity and lying so often.

Moulton’s answer on whether Trump’s impeachment is, in his mind, morally warranted: It’s a “tricky political question.” He bobbed around before saying he’d support impeachment only “if Republicans agreed. Not all Republicans, but if a consensus in the country on both sides of the aisle.”

In addition to Biden—who likes nurturing dynamic young veteran candidates who remind him of his son Beau, but who isn't as tight with Moulton as he is with some others in that category—the congressman scored one of the earliest private meetings with former President Barack Obama, who has held a series of sit-downs with potential 2020 candidates in his Washington office. The two met in June 2017, long before Obama met with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti or most of the others who’ve made the pilgrimage since.

Moulton won’t talk about that meeting—just like he didn’t talk about winning the Bronze Star in Iraq until a reporter tracked down the information, and won’t talk about what happened during a particularly rough day during his deployment when he says one of the men under him turned to him and said, “You know, sir? You ought to run for Congress some day so that this shit doesn’t happen again.”

“I don’t like telling war stories,” Moulton said, declining to explain what prompted that comment.

Harbaugh said he called Moulton the morning after the 2016 election to talk about his impulse to get involved.

“He knew what I was asking: ‘Should I run?’” Harbaugh said. Moulton’s honest response, Harbaugh acknowledged, sounds scripted: “‘You’re asking the wrong question. The question you should be asking is: Is this a noble fight?’”

Harbaugh started to put his campaign together.

“At the time, it felt like a lonely decision, until you realize that hundreds of other veterans have that same impulse. We put way too much on the line for our country to see the rancor and division continue to tear us apart,” Harbaugh said.

Harbaugh will host Moulton on Saturday for a visit to a jail and firehouse, then a roundtable with veterans in the district, then a joint fundraiser for him and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). He’s a draw, candidates say. He may be junior in the House, he may not be a household name, but he is an easy and important validator of a veteran actually running and winning.

And if that helps Moulton with his own future ambitions, they’re fine with that, too.

“It’s not mutually exclusive,” said candidate Ryan, “to do the right thing and have it be politically helpful.”