Seth Moulton repeatedly insists he isn’t running for president
Because campaign season never stops in this country, speculation is already swirling about who may run against President Donald Trump in 2020. And Elizabeth Warren isn’t the only Bay Stater caught up in it.
“I’m not running for president,” Rep. Seth Moulton repeatedly said during a WGBH interview Wednesday, sticking with the same present tense denial that Warren frequently used early on before the 2016 presidential campaign. Warren has since written that she did consider running at the time.
In a story Monday about potential 2020 presidential candidates, The New York Times reported that Moulton, a Salem Democrat and 38-year-old Iraq War veteran, has “not ruled out running in private conversations.” The second-term congressman has seen his national profile climb over the past year — especially since the election of Trump, who he has regularly criticized on foreign policy.
“He’s not running for president,” Moulton’s spokeswoman, Carrie Rankin, told The Boston Globe after the Times story was published Monday. “Seth Moulton is not running for president.”
As the Globe noted, no person has gone directly from the House to the Oval Office since President James Garfield. That hasn’t stopped some — such as Rep. Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012 and Rep. Dick Gephardt in 2004 — from trying.
But Moulton made it clear Wednesday that he, currently, is not.
“It’s good to be back, but I’m not running for president,” he said at the beginning of his appearance on WGBH’s Boston Public Radio.
“Are you considering running for president?” asked BPR co-host Jared Bowen.
“I’m not running for president,” Moulton replied. “And there are a lot of different ways to ask the question. I’m not running for president.”
Moulton said he was simply continuing to “call out” Trump, who he said was “uniquely dangerous to our nation,” as well as pushing for reforms within the Democratic Party following last year’s election. He reasoned that those two factors may be “gathering some attention.”
“I’m just being honest. I’m not running for president,” he later said.
Moulton described the reception he received following a speech at a local defense contractor in his North Shore district.
“There was silence, and then one young woman raised her hand and asked, ‘Who are you?’” he said Wednesday. “That doesn’t sound like a presidential candidate.”
At least not at this present moment.
