The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Trump Isn't Joking About Canceling Midterms

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

Congressman Seth Moulton joins Joanna Coles for a no frills, clear account of the Venezuela crisis — and why he believes the administration is lying to Congress at every turn. From chaotic briefings where officials dodge questions, to Republican colleagues privately admitting they would be outraged if a Democrat did the same, Moulton argues the United States has no real plan, only escalation. He connects the timing to distractions over healthcare premiums and the Epstein files, criticizes Democratic leaders for failing to level with voters, and makes the case for generational change, age limits, and his own Senate run — while warning that a weakened Congress and normalized “crazy” are far more dangerous than most Americans realize. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Donald Trump yesterday, talking to a lot of his Congress, sort of alluded to or made a joke that the midterms might even get canceled. The midterms might not even go ahead. Do you think that this is genuinely a possibility? Oh, absolutely a possibility. I mean, I would go further and say most likely scenario that he tries to disrupt the midterms, cancel them, delay them, whatever else. I mean, this is a guy who just took Maduro out of Venezuela. I think we should take this deadly seriously. And if there's one lesson I've learned from Donald Trump over two terms,

is that when he says he's going to do something bad, he almost always does something worse. I'm Joanna Coles. This is the Daily Beast podcast. And I can barely believe these words are going to come out of my mouth. But I am so excited to share a conversation with you that I just have. had with a congressman. I know, how is that possible? Normally they speak in policy paragraphs. They seem inhuman. But Seth Moulton represents District 6, I think that's what it's called,

in Massachusetts. And we had such a remarkable freewheeling conversation about the failure of democratic leadership, about the kuk that is RFK Jr, about Heg-Zeth and how weak the actual army regard him as. It was just a riveting conversation. And then, of course, Donald Trump's clearly declining mental health and the big question facing all of us, really, which is, are we on the potential verge of a new world war? Anyway, it's almost worth moving to Massachusetts for let's get into it, Congressman South Malton. World order is changing. We're recording this. on Wednesday morning for Wednesday evening broadcast. And as we speak, U.S. troops appear to be trying to onboard a Venezuelan tanker, which managed to evade the blockade and appears to be

headed for Russia. Anyway, let's step back a moment and just ask you, Venezuela, is there even a plan there? Absolutely not. I mean, the honest truth is, we, We don't really know because the administration has been lying to us every step of the way. You know, there are a lot of complaints about the fact that the administration hasn't briefed Congress, but in a sense, they have been briefing us, not reliably, but over the past several months. And we've had opportunities, especially on the Armed Services Committee, to ask them questions. Like, do you plan regime change in Venezuela? They said no.

Do you plan to use ground troops in Venezuela? They said no. Do you plan to do anything beyond the boat strikes in Venezuela? They said no. So they have briefed us a bit. They've just lied to us every step of the way. So, Congressman, when you have a briefing, for those of us who've never been in a briefing room, who is briefing you and what is it like?

Well, there are a lot of different briefings, but let me focus on two. one is the briefing that we're going to have today from administration officials. And that's when people like Ranger Pete, the Secretary of War, as he calls himself. Ranger Pete. He's actually one of the only Armyagers who never made it through Ranger school. So that's why we kind of joke about that. But we must come back to Pete Heggseth because I want a full debrief on him. And I know you've gone mano-a-mano with him in Select Committee.

meetings. But let's, I interrupt you do. Explain a briefing to us. Yeah, so like we'll have an all-member briefing, all the members of the House or all the members of the Senate. And people like Hegsseth and Rubio and their deputies will come and explain stuff. And Hakesh always reads very carefully from his notes, because especially after the Iran briefing where he said things that weren't true, he's got to be very careful about what he says. Rubio is much. more casual and he'll just get up there and say, all right, look, guys, I'm one of you, you know, I was in the Congress just a short time ago and let me just level with you what's going on. But in these big briefings, they don't get into much detail because there's a lot of people members that they

obviously can't trust. And as a result, they just sort of give this high level stuff. But we can still ask fundamental questions like, do you plan to invade Venezuela? And let's just say they have lied. The second kind of briefing that I get is as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, we have much smaller briefings with lower-level people. These are sort of like deputy secretaries in the Department of Defense and just relatively senior military officials, admirals, generals, and whatnot. And in those settings with a much smaller group of more trusted individuals, and these are fully classified, we can really get into the details.

We really ask tough, point of questions. Like, are you making operational plans for doing anything in Venezuela? Now, because these are classified, I can't share the answers to the questions, but I can tell you, you know, have they told the truth? And I can share some of the questions that we have asked. And the bottom line is they just come in and lie to us. Really? So what are some of the questions you've asked then? Is there going to be regime change?

Has anybody said, did anybody ask, are they going to extract the president and his wife? I don't think anyone asked that question in particular. We also didn't ask, are you planning to invade nations to steal their oil? Because, I mean, if I were a member of the Duma in Russia, that might be a good question to ask. But we didn't think we had to ask a question like that. in the United States of America. Well, I guess we've learned our lesson there. So you're going to have a briefing today.

Are there going to be questions also asked about Cuba and Colombia and now unfathomably Greenland? In the larger briefing we're having today that all members of the House can attend, the administration officials usually try to filibuster for quite a while, so we don't get to there very many questions. I mean, this is like such a test of any, Paul. politician. Like, do they just speak for a long time in filibuster or do they genuinely want to hear your questions? Like, there are colleagues of mine who do down halls where they basically just rattle on forever. And I really try to, like, actually listen to people and then let them yell at me if they want to and actually get to respond to those questions. This administration, they don't want to take questions. So they're going to fill a busser for a while.

They'll get to a few questions at the end. And it's kind of like this, you know, rat race to get up. to the front of the auditorium and ask your question. And if there are a bunch of softballs from Republicans who will aid the administration by filibustering themselves, you know, well, let me just spend about five minutes before I get to my question talking about what a brilliant president Donald Trump is, you know, then we're not going to get to ask many of these pointed questions that really, that we really need to ask to do our job. So I'm assuming that you woke up on Saturday morning like the rest of us with complete surprise

and shock at the news about Maduro. Now Congress is back. What are you hearing from your colleagues across the aisle as well as Democratic colleagues? Well, first of all, just to tell you how it happened, I got a text at 3 in the morning from a friend who just said, saw this on the Internet. that looks like this is happening. And was I surprised?

In a sense, was I shocked? No. Because honestly, I've just gotten used to this administration lying to us and doing things that they say they won't do and doing things that are just completely insane. Like, this is absurd what's going on here. I think some people have lost touch with the fact that this administration has normalized things so much,

normalized, crazy absurd things that you would only expect dictators like Vladimir Putin to do, that we're not just stepping back and saying for a minute, this is totally nuts. It doesn't matter how bad Maduro is. It doesn't matter what a mess Venezuela is. It doesn't matter how brilliant the military operation was. Very proud of the troops. Sure. I'm proud of the troops, of course.

I'm proud to be a veteran myself. That doesn't matter. This is nuts. And we should not be running Venezuela. We should not be occupying Venezuela. We should not be putting more people into Venezuela. We should not be starting wars for our oil companies, who, by the way, if you do the math, don't even want Venezuelan oil. None of this makes sense.

It's dangerous. And it does nothing to solve all the big problems that we actually have here at home. So, sorry for that rant, but that's just the reality here that I think we've got to be honest with people about. So do your Republican colleagues, English, Congress agree with you when you're just talking in small groups and the press isn't there. So do Republicans also think that this is nuts and potentially dangerous? I mean, just a few weeks ago, before any of this big stuff happened, I mean, when we were just killing people on boats, just the extrajudicial killing spree, right?

I heard several Republicans say, I mean, one of them came up to me and said, look, if Biden were doing this, we'd be crying bloody murder. So they're just being so political, so completely subservient to Trump. And there's one word that summarizes all of this, which is just cowardice. They're just cowards. They care much more about sucking up to Donald Trump than following their oath to the Constitution. That's the bottom line. This is the weakest Congress, probably in American history, certainly the weakest speaker in American history.

and it's doing terrible, terrible damage to the institution of Congress that's supposed to actually act, as we all know, as a check on the executive. Three days before the Maduro news, people got their health care bills and saw their premiums had in cases, some cases tripled, certainly doubled in many cases. And clearly this feels like it is some sort of a distraction technique. Even Donald Trump appears to think he's going to lose the midterms. So in what way are Republicans not now looking forward and thinking, how are we going to deliver for people back home? I mean, I understand the threat of a primary, but what Republican is going to win if this keeps going on?

I don't know. But let me just stop for a second as to say, you know, a lot of people are saying, don't get all political about. this and like conspiracy theorists or whatever like this is blatantly obvious why is he starting a war threatening more wars all of a sudden right now because there's two things we're not talking about one is health care which you just mentioned and the other is epstein we're releasing there are troves of epstein files that are being released although the justice department is disobeying the law

and dragging its feet on the releases and this is the one thing the one thing that actually is really hurting Donald Trump. So of course this is when he's starting these wars right now. And I think that just, it's so obvious what's going on here. And it should be obvious to the American people that as the president lies to Congress, lies to you, it's all in the name of protecting himself. How effective do you think Democrats are being at stressing this, at saying exactly what you've said? not effective at all. And by the way, I realized I didn't really answer your last question, which is about, like, okay, so how is this going to affect Republicans in the midterms?

But we're kind of going to get to it here because there's no question that Republicans should get completely wiped out in the midterms. But the problem is that there's a real lack of leadership in the Democratic Party right now. And the Democratic establishment sort of using the same old playbook that clearly is not working, that clearly has not been effective. stopping Trump. We've got a second term of him. You know, that clearly has not been effective at showing the American people that there's a trustworthy alternative here. We just seem to continue doing the same old thing. And so, you know, like, that's one of the reasons why I think we just got to be more bluntly honest about what's going on and not wrap ourselves around the axle of, you know, well, we don't want to, we don't offend the military by criticizing this operation after it was really

successful or, you know, we don't want to offend the Venezuelan expats who want Maduro gone. Like, I hear them. I've got a really great friend who's a Venezuelan expat. They hate Maduro. I get it. But let's just be honest and straightforward with people. But the problem is that the Democratic Party right now has a history of doing this, right? We kind of just ignored immigration. We said, oh, no, this is Republicans weaponizing the issue. It's not really a big problem. Well, it was a number one issue in the last election. And then we said, the Biden administration said inflation wasn't a big deal. Oh, it's transitory.

Like, what does that even mean? You know, when you just get to the checkout line and you're taking cartons of eggs out of your cart because you can't pay for them. You don't want to hear from the president, though, this is transitory. And then the icing on the cake, of course, was everything's fine. There's nothing to see here. Joe Biden is just great. and Americans could see with our own eyes that that wasn't the case. So I think the Democratic Party has a real credibility problem right now.

And when you have a credibility problem, when you have people who just say, I don't think I can trust these guys, I might hate what Trump's doing, but I don't think I can trust the opposition, then you have to change. You have to show, okay, I hear you. I want to change, not blinders on. I'm going to keep doing the same old thing. So you are part of a group in 2018 that moved to try and oust Nancy Pelosi, largely because she'd been there such a long time. You're now running for Senate against Ed Markey, who's been a long-term senator in Massachusetts, who's 79.

How did the Democratic Party, and of course Donald Trump is the oldest president we've had, he'll be 80 this year. How did the political parties get sort of held hostage by people who in any other career would have been forced to retire by now? Well, it's especially bad problem for Democrats. I mean, in the past year, three Democratic colleagues of mine in the House died. And so, like, we would have defeated the big, beautiful bill on the first vote if one of my colleagues, you know, may his soul rest in peace and simply die a day later. So this is, this is critically dangerous. It's shocking to hear that.

Do you think there should be an age cutoff? I do. I do. We have an age little bit for judges in Massachusetts. And it's 70. That doesn't mean that there aren't brilliant judges who are 80 or even, maybe even a few who are 90. But, you know, in the same vein, I served with some of the most incredible amazing Americans I've ever met in my life in the Marine Corps.

And these are young Americans that we give extraordinary responsibility to. I mean, 18-year-olds who are making life or death decisions. Most of my colleagues in Congress have never made life or death decisions before. And yet we entrust that responsibility to 18-year-olds. So, look, I served with a lot of Marines who are, frankly, way more professional than some of my colleagues. And yet we've kind of agreed as a country that 26 is the age limit. do I know 24-year-olds, 22-year-olds, who could be more responsible than my colleagues today? Yes.

But we don't protest that. We just say, that's a good, just general guideline. You have to be 26 before you can get into a position where you're making important decisions as a member of Congress. I think it's only reasonable to say that we should have an upper-age limit as well. Now, I don't know what that should be, but I do think we should have that debate. I want to foster that debate. and I'll tell you this, like if we can, you know, conclude on an age, you know, come to a, come to an agreement, I will work to pass it into law. And if I'm ever in that position myself, I will certainly abide by it personally.

So how is your Senate race going? I mean, it's early days, but it's later this year, right? Well, I mean, it is early days because the election is not, the primary is not until next September. And we just launched a couple months ago. But it seems to be going pretty well, and I'll give you just, you know, a couple measures. One is that this basic message that it's time for a new generation of leaders in the Democratic Party. It's really resonating, you know. And I remember my first campaign when I was also running against the Democratic establishment,

I was taking on a nine-term incumbent. And by the way, there are a lot of members of the Massachusetts Democratic establishment who said, why are you doing this? You shouldn't run against a fellow Democrat. Like, this is not good. This is not right. What they were basically saying to me was, as a young veteran, having just returned from the war, Seth, do not participate in the democracy you just risked your life to defend. And that is wrong. And we should be welcoming these contests in a democracy. Right. Do you have support yet from Elizabeth Warren, the other senator in

Massachusetts and Governor Healy. So Elizabeth Warren and many, many other politicians in Massachusetts endorsed Ed Markey long before there was any talk of any of us running against him. And there ended up being a number of members of Congress, colleagues of mine from the Massachusetts delegation, who looked at running against Senator Markey, prominently Jake Ockincloss and Iona Presley as well, both of whom have decided not to run. But what Senator Markey did is he spent the first part of this year just running around and getting everybody's endorsement that he could. But endorsements don't win races.

And frankly, it just proves my point that the establishment is with the senator. The political establishment that seems so calcified in the Democratic Party today is supporting Senator Markey. That's exactly what you would expect. So I'm not focused on getting other politicians to endorse me. I'm focused on getting Massachusetts voters to support my campaign. And, I mean, look, the early signs are pretty good. The message is really resonating. A lot of people feel that this is a time when we need a new generation of leaders in the party.

By the way, I've always said that. I said that in my first race. I've said it when I help people get people like Mikey Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger elected through my organization, Serve America in 2018. Again, operating outside the Democratic establishment to set up this independent organization to support candidates, who ended up, by the way, flipping about half the houses we flipped, sorry, for half the cease, we flipped in the entire House of Representatives that year.

So completely outsized impact, again, working outside the party establishment infrastructure. And, yeah, so I'm used to running against the establishment, and it's not always popular, you know? But right now, it feels desperately needed, so that's working well. We just got early fundraising reports back. I raised two to three times as much as he did. So, you know, things are off to a good start, but we've got a long way to go. And I very much think I'm the underdog in this race. Like, I'm not, I don't think for a second this is going to be easy.

You know, it's always tough to one seat in incumbent, especially one who's been elected in Congress for half a century, for longer than I've been alive. It's just extraordinary to think that someone could be doing. it for that length of time. And of course he's been a popular senator, but the point is, very good guy. Very good guy. And I want to acknowledge that. I thank you for your service, Senator. You know, you've dedicated the majority of your life to public service, to serving an elected office. It's not always an easy job. And I respect Senator Markey. And by the way, I like him. He's a nice guy. He's a very nice guy. But thank you for your service. Let's pass

the torch to a new generation of leaders. So another family that is or other entrenched Democrats in Massachusetts are, of course, the Kennedys. And then you have Robert F. Kennedy now pulling back on vaccines and changing, well, seeming to be trying to unsolve problems that have been solved for a long time. Again, what are you hearing from Republicans on the Hill about what they actually think about Robert Kennedy? I think he's a cook. I mean, so many of them said, come on, Democrats, stop whining about this. He's not actually going to get confirmed as Secretary of HHS. And do they have, what is their reaction to what he's doing,

the dismantling of allowing children certain vaccines, the pushing back of vaccines until kids are 12? I mean, your public reaction is to do nothing because this is what Trump seems to want, right? And again, they're just cowards. So they won't do anything to go against the president. And privately, especially the doctors, know that it's ridiculous. And I've had some of these private conversations with doctors who, you know, shake their heads. But what Republicans are able to do in this moment is rationalize their position, you know, really, really drink the Kool-Aid by keying into one thing they like that he's doing.

And, you know, one of the sort of recipes to Donald Trump's success, I hate to admit it, is that he usually finds a kernel of truth, tries to address that kernel of truth, and then, of course, just blows it completely out of proportion. So when, you know, Secretary Kennedy says America's not very healthy and we should eat healthier foods, I agree with that. Right. It's hard not to agree with that. As a parent, as a dad, I feel like it's such a struggle to get my.

kids healthy food here in America. And so I agree we should be eating healthier. We should not be failing to vaccinate our kids. Oh, crazy time. So let me ask you about Pete Hegzeth, who also served in Iraq, as you did. What do you make of his decision or perhaps it's Donald Trump's decision, but nevertheless, the two of them, to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. And what do you make of... It's so pathetic. And what do you think of his whole warrior culture?

When you saw him pull all the generals together and make them come from across the world and sit in front of him and then him lecture them on being overweight, what did you think as a Marine? It's the definition of weakness. He's so weak. You know, he's so weak that he has to go around and puff up his chest. and try to act tough and say mean things and change the name of his department to war instead of defense

to try to prove something he's probably been trying to prove for his entire life, which is that he's not weak. And yet he's totally weak. And one sign of weakness is when you can't even adhere to your own principles. And that's what we've learned time and again with Pete Hakeseth, because Pete Hakesheth right now is going after a true American hero astronaut Mark Kelly, current senator, demoting him and rank, doing things that are totally unprecedented. Why? Because Senator Kelly said something crazy. He said, you should follow the law.

You should follow the law if you are serving in the United States military. A position of strength would have been for the secretary to say, yeah, he's right. And I'm not going to tell anybody not to follow the law. The whole thing would have gone away. But he's so weak that he has to try to attack Mark Kelly. And then it comes out that Pete Hankseth himself said basically the exact same thing, word for word, back in 2016 or 2015, when he was criticizing Donald Trump, like most Republicans at the time, before he changed his principles to support Donald Trump. So everyone I know in the military thinks that Hague Seth is a total joke. And that's kind of the more junior folks, the more senior people who I, you know, just know

because of my job here in Congress on the Armed Services Committee will privately admit that the Department of Defense is just in total chaos. Nothing is getting done. It's a mess. And it's dangerous. It's dangerous for our national security when the Secretary of Defense himself is a threat to our national security, as he proved when he released all this classified information right before an operation where had to Houthis or the Chinese just gotten that classified information that could have shot. down in our place and Americans would have died. Okay, so let me take you back to Democratic leadership.

Other than that, he's great, though. Congressman, just hold on one second while we take some ads. And I'm back with Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton. But let me take you back to Democratic leadership and what's going on there. We had Governor Walsh pulling out this week saying that he was unable to campaign fully and give his attention to the people of Minnesota, which seemed odd because he must have been able to campaign last time he ran for office and look after the people of Minnesota, whatever. Let's put that on one side.

Who do you think is doing a good job besides yourself, of course, in representing the younger generation or the new generation, there's still boomers, I think, a lot of them, of the Democratic Party? I love this question. I'm not going to get to it, but I just want to say something about Tim Walts first. because, you know, in the worst days in Iraq, I would always tell them Marines in my platoon, we will not be judged by how we do when things are easy. We will be judged by how we do when things are hard. That's what real leadership is.

And actually, I think Tim Walts is being a real leader by saying the right thing to do for the state of Minnesota, for the country, and yes, also for my family, in his case, is to not run. That's actually real leadership to know when it's the time to step aside, to know when it's the time to pass that torch to another leader. It's a really tough decision to do that. It would probably be easier for him to just, you know, continue on his campaign. And he might very well win at the end of the day. But actually, I think he's being a real leader. And I think we need more people to do that in the Democratic Party.

And by the way, someone else who has done that is, in fact, Nancy Pelosi. Now, some of us, you know, thought that she had done this. a little too long. And by the way, it wasn't just that she had been there for too long because she's brilliant and she's been extraordinary. And she's obviously the first woman speaker of the house, like a truly historic American political figure that will go down in history as that. But it wasn't just that she had been there for a long time.

It was that all these candidates like Abigail Spanberger, Mikey Sherrill, you know, two new governors who had huge wins in November of this past year, they ran against her in 2018. They got elected because they said they would oppose her. And so a lot of us just said, well, that's what we ran on. That was our campaign. So we should pursue that. And by the way, we sat down.

We ended up supporting Pelosi, who really garnered the support in the caucus, and we didn't have a good alternative. But she also agreed to step down after the next term after this, after that one. And it's an agreement she honored to the letter. Okay. So I hear you on Nancy Pelosi, though she certainly was in her 80s when she, decided to step aside. She was, but I'll just give her credit. One, she honored our agreement to the letter and stepping down and passing the torch to Hakeem Jeffries. And then she recently decided to retire from Congress. And I think that that is, you know, what we should see more leaders in the

Democratic Party doing. And it's frankly what Tim Walz is doing right now. But to the fun stuff, okay, who are the exciting new people? Well, look at the big wins that we had. just a couple months ago. Right. Zoran Mandami, Mikey Cheryl, Abigail Spanberger, down the eastern seaboard, right? And they are in different positions on the political spectrum, right? I mean, I mean, Zora Mundami is, I mean, technically he's not,

he's a democratic socialist, right? Abigail Spanberger. And also defied what I think the democratic establishment wanted for the city of New York, right? I mean, that can't. That candidate was really Andrew. You're obviously incredibly smart, so you're anticipating my point that I'm trying to get to, which is that... I'm very, very smart. Thank you for pointing that out.

No, but, I mean, so they're not all the same Democrat at all. Abigail Spanberger and Zora Mundami are very, very far apart on the ideological spectrum of Democrats. But by the way, if we're going to be a majority party, we've got to get them all in the tent, right? And so, first of all, I think it's great that both of them that are in our party and Mikey Schur, is much closer to Spanberger, and she's only a half mile away from Zora Mundami, right, across the river, right? But they all won big. So what do they have in common if they have some ideological differences? Well, two things.

Their next generation leaders, every single one of them, and they've all run against the establishment. They've all run against the Democratic establishment. They've put forward things like an affordability agenda that has not been part of what Democrats were talking about at all. You never heard an affordability agenda from Joe Biden. it wasn't a big part of Kamala Harris's campaign. She just said she was going to do the same thing as Joe. So this is really exciting new leadership. And the point is, it's a change. People say, okay, these Democrats are not doing the same old thing. This is not the democratic establishment. These are young next generation leaders that I can get excited about and get

behind. And that's why they didn't win by a little. They won by a lot. They really won big. Okay, so what about Governor Newsom, who's certainly broken through in terms of his social media and his appearance to be unafraid of Donald Trump and his clear enjoyment at mocking Donald Trump? I love that about Gavin Newsom. I think the question in our Democratic primary eventually for 2028, which, by the way, we really have got to figure on how to win the midterms in 26 first. And then that should be a blueprint. for 2028. But when we get there, I think, you know, Democratic voters across the country will certainly acknowledge all the things that Gavin Newsom has done to confront Donald Trump, which I admire myself. The question will be, you know, is that the person that we want leading the party? Is that the person who can win states like Wisconsin in Pennsylvania? And I think that that's very much an open question.

What about Governor Shapiro in Pennsylvania? You know, I've never met Governor Shapiro, but I hear great things about him. So, you know, I probably can't say myself, but obviously Pennsylvania is an incredibly important state. He seems extremely well-liked, and I hear he's a great guy. What about Governor Whitmer in Michigan? I've only met her once, but was very impressed. I think she's brilliant. I think she has really figured out how to run a swing state and do so effectively. but I would just point out that, you know, Barack Obama was totally unknown this far out. Okay, you totally, you now stole my point because I was going to say that the really smart, interesting thing about Barack Obama coming from outside the Democratic establishment was his decision to take on Hillary Clinton, who just seemed unsurpassable at that point. Everyone assumed that she had it all wrapped up. That's right. That's right.

I mean, look, the most frequent question I get in my Senate race is Seth, a Kennedy tried to do this in Massachusetts to unseat Ed Markey and fails. So who do you think you are? You know, no one's ever heard of Malton or whatever. And the point is that, yeah, it's hard to run against the establishment. But sometimes we really need that in the Democratic Party. And I think that we're at one of those moments. So let's not just look at the sort of establishment. candidates right now. Now, I mean, look, I wouldn't call all of these people

Democratic establishment. I mean, in the sense that they're not, you know, they're not 80, right? But I think we might see some people come out of left field here in the course of the next three years, and we might have a nominee that none of us can expect right now. Well, and I suspect you're going to be one of those nominees. But let me just... That is not the point I'm trying to make. Well, you may not be trying to make that point, but I'm introducing it into the conversation. in Massachusetts. I mean, for the long while, that's a big leap.

For those of us outside of politics, can you just explain who is the democratic establishment? Because when I look at your resume, I think it doesn't get more establishment than someone like South Malton. You went to Phillips Andover. You went, you've got three degrees from Harvard. Your first degree was in physics. You've got an MBA and you've got a master's in public policy. And yet, who is the.

democratic establishment that is holding down a whole generation of new leaders to the detriment of, well, frankly, the country. It's not defined by where you went to school or something like that. It's defined by this long tenure of doing nothing but politics. And I think, you know, people know that I am not a creature of politics. I mean, I came in as a total outsider as a Marine. I mean, fundamentally, I am here because I'm. I saw the consequences of failed leadership in Washington as a U.S. Marine, and I said, I don't want that to happen again.

I mean, there was a tough day when a young Marine in my platoon, you know, came up to me and said, you know, sir, you had to run for Congress someday so that this shit doesn't happen again. And, you know, that's why I'm here. Because it's not because I studied politics in school. I didn't. I studied physics. It didn't always get the best grades, but I tried. And then I didn't volunteer on campaigns. I really didn't know anything about politics. And in fact, when I came back and went to grad school,

like every aspiring Massachusetts politician, the first job I took was in Dallas. I went to run a high-speed rail project. But clearly, like, you don't move to Dallas if you're planning to run for office in Massachusetts. I actually got inspired to run in large part by this amazing nonprofit new politics run by this great service veteran leader Emily Churniak

who called me up and said, you should think about, you know, serving serving again. But anyway, the point is that, you know, there's this sort of calcified, like, all I've done is politics my entire life. That totally defines me. I followed it as a kid. I studied it in school.

I ran for the school board and then was elected to the state senator or whatever. I got picked to run for Congress by the establishment because they just said it's it's his turn next right he's been waiting in line and that's all i've ever known and i think that that's not that's not what we what americans feel like they need like when i first got elected i remember i was trying to hire a very diverse staff and by that i mean people with a broad range of experience not just political insiders although by the way we made sure to hire a couple of political insiders so we kind of knew how the system worked But I said to them, I said, look, if we were coming in to a real high-performing organization, it would be very arrogant to say on day one, we're going to do everything differently.

But the flip side of that is if you're coming into a very low-performing organization, then it's kind of dumb to say, we're just going to keep doing what everyone else is doing. So I really challenged my team, like, let's see if we can do things differently, see if we can do things better. And I just think that that's the way that Americans feel about the political establishment right now. I mean, Congress has abysmal approval ratings. People are frustrated with politicians on both sides of the aisle. So we don't need more of the same. We don't need more of the people who just got us to this point. We need some people who have a bit different perspective to come in and say, let's shake things up.

When you were watching the debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, what did you think would happen at the end of it. Okay, so I got to confess. Oh my God, you didn't watch the debate. You didn't watch the debate. I had tickets to a great concert with a good friend and did not see the beginning of the debate. I always saw the end. What was the concept? Now, look, you can watch it up. What was the concept? But here's the thing. I, so I only saw a, I saw like six minutes of the debate, right? Did you not go back and watch it? Did you not? not go back and watch the whole thing? Well, later I saw the clips, yes, right?

I mean, you could give me, in this day and age, you know, you can, you know, later that night even just get the clips or whatever. So I don't think I was being totally irresponsible as a member of Congress. You know, at some point, like, you know, I'm a human too, right? Okay. And I don't love politics as a sport. So, like, I'm not the guy who organizes the big debate watch party and calls all my friends and says, this is the coolest thing I've ever done.

No, I wanted to go to a concert, sorry. Can you tell us what the concert was? It was actually, it was a series of bands down in D.C. I mean, it was, I don't even remember exactly it was playing, but it was like it was just a great fun, you know, evening off or whatever. And I caught the end of the debate. And I, about 30 seconds in, like after turning it on, I said, oh my God, we're going to lose.

And the next day, I said this, this is. some colleagues. And I said, like, I said 30 seconds into watching the debate, I said, I can't believe this. We're going to lose. And my friends all said, oh, no, no, no, that was just the beginning. It got a lot better. I'm like, oh, no, this is even worse, because I watched the end. I, I apparently watched the peak of Joe Biden's performance. And I don't, I mean, look, I'm giving you an honest story here, right? I mean, this is how I, I, I'm, I mean, this is how I, this is how I saw it. But, by the way, I don't think I've ever admitted to anyone else on a podcast that I didn't watch the whole debate from start to finish.

But it's too late now anyway. It's too late now, you know, so that's the actual story. And it's, I don't revel in sharing this story because Joe Biden was actually a great mentor of mine in politics. You know, when I ran in this very contentious primary against the Democratic. establishment. And, you know, and by the way, back then Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Kennedy, they all campaigned against me, you know, really attracted. They all campaigned against you. Against me. Yeah, as this young veteran running, you know, against a nine-term incumbent who'd only passed one bill in 18 years, they all supported him. And, and, and, and, and, and, the first

National Democrat to come out and, like, do something big for me was actually Joe Biden. The vice president of United States, flew up to Lynn, the YMCA and Lynn, Massachusetts. It was so old and falling down and since been torn down. And he did this big rally for me. He hosted a fundraiser for me. I mean, he really went right out there and said, no, no, no, this is our guy. He's part of the team and we're going to support him. And then ever since, I mean, he would call me from the White House sometimes when he saw me on CNN and say, you know, there's a great interview. of you, good job or whatever. So I have a tremendous amount of personal affinity for Joe Biden, and I've learned a lot

from him. But at some point, you need to step aside. And also, didn't you say that at some point he stopped recognizing you? Yeah. Yeah, he did. I mean, it's someone who used to pick up the phone when he saw me on CNN. And then there are a lot of us here. There's 535 less on Capitol Hill.

But he used to pick up the phone when he saw me when we were. together in a small group at the D-Day anniversary in France. You know, he didn't recognize me. And so after that debate, I said, you know, I'm sorry, I became, I guess, the third in the Congress House or Senate to come out and publicly say that he shouldn't run for office. But I'm not even that proud of that because, frankly, I should have been the first and I should have said it even sooner than I did.

Okay. So Donald Trump yesterday, talking to a lot of his Congress, sort of alluded to or made a joke that the midterms might even get canceled. The midterms might not even go ahead. Do you think this is sort of rhetoric and he's just trying something out? Or do you think that this is genuinely a possibility? How concerned we should be? Absolutely a possibility. Absolutely.

I mean, I would go further and say most likely scenario that he tries to disrupt the midterms, cancel them, delay them, whatever else. I mean, I mean, this is a guy who just took Maduro out of Venezuela and said, you know, Maduro was corrupt. He's not the, he's not the justified leader, right? This is what he's technically on trial for in New York, right? And then did Trump install the person who actually won the election? No. No, because the opposition party, one of the big leaders of the opposition, not actually the person who was elected, but a key ally won the Nobel Priests Prize that he wanted himself.

So out of personal jealousy, he did not reflect the will of the Venezuelan. Right, Christina Machado. Right. And now he's saying, oh, well, you know, we just need to be in charge for a while. they shouldn't have elections until things simmer down. That sounds to me like a trial run of what he can use. Oh, well, things are too chaotic right now. There's a war going on.

Remember when Zelensky came to the office? And he said, oh, you can't have elections because of the war? And Zelensky said, yeah, well, that's what our Constitution says. By the way, that's not what our Constitution says. Maybe this is part of why he's starting so many wars. So I think we should take this deadly seriously. And if there's one lesson I've learned from Donald Trump over two terms, is that when he says he's going to do something,

something bad, he almost always does something worse. Congressman, just hold on one second while we take some ads. And I'm back with Democratic Congressman Seth Malton. Do you think that we actually stand on the edge of potentially another World War? A World War would start with China invading Taiwan. That's where a World War would start. And, you know, not to be a downer, but like this actually, is probably the single most important issue in the world today.

I sit on the Armed Services Committee and the Select Committee on China. And the way this plays out in the war games is China invades Taiwan. America comes to Taiwan's defense, as we have heavily implied, and World War III breaks out, and it often goes nuclear, which means that life as we know it ends on planet Earth. And by the way, for everyone who says, oh, well, Seth, that's crazy. Like, we just wouldn't get involved.

Okay, well, then that means that, you know, we can't even have a private conversation with cell phones in our room because China could be spying on us because they'll own every advanced chip in the world. You know, so the next time you want to have a private conversation with your family, plan on putting your cell phones in a lead box before you start.

I mean, I mean, this is both options, either not helping Taiwan or helping Taiwan are devastating for us and for the rest of the world. And so it is the most important thing that we deter and prevent a war with China. And so the question that you have to ask when you're looking at all these other much more minor foreign policy problems in the world, Venezuela, which is like, you know, 780 on the list, right, is does this help stop a war with China, prevent a war with China? And the answer is no. No. Actually, when we put a lot of American ships and personnel and focus and attention and assets and everything else in Venezuela, of all places, we are taking them away from preventing a war with China. Do you think there's any indication that Donald Trump would actually go to the aid of Taiwan? I think the problem is, I mean, so again, like, if his advisors, there's a whole slew of his advisors who were China Hawks, you know, they would point out. all these problems with not going to the aid of Taiwan. And most importantly, the fact that if you

say you won't protect them, that makes it more likely that China starts a war. But the other reality here is that a lot of these war games have China attacking us, maybe not in the United States of America, but our satellites, our ships, our things that would get in their way from a successful operation in Taiwan. They have them attacking. us first. And I'm not if I've been anything classified here. I'm talking about, you know, when think tanks do war games or whatever. And, and so I'm not sure how any president doesn't respond to that if all of a sudden China's shooting a bunch of missiles at our people, at our ships, at our satellites. You're on the Armed Services Committee. You must get all sorts

of intelligence briefings. What are the briefings you get that give you an inkling? into what Xi Jinping actually thinks of Donald Trump? Well, I mean, I wouldn't be able to share any of that. But I will just make two broad points that I think everyone needs to understand. The Sieging-Ping is deadly serious about this. You know, remember, there are a lot of people who said, oh, come on, Putin's not really going to invade Ukraine. Like, I know he said that he would.

I know that he's written about it. I know that he's basically staked his reputation on it. But he's not really going to invade Ukraine. It doesn't make any sense. Well, let's just be clear. Sometimes dictators, Donald Trump being a good example, want to be a dictator, tell you exactly what they're going to do. And Xi Jinping has said he wants to invade Taiwan. He staked his personal reputation on it.

He staked China's reputation on it. He's spent billions of dollars building a military that has a huge amphibious invasion force to invade Taiwan. I mean, like, this is pretty clear that this is what he wants to do. And Xi Jinping's also not getting any younger. so if he wants to do this in his lifetime, then he's probably going to have to do it relatively soon. So the most important thing that you should know from the intelligence picture is Xi Jinping really does want to take Taiwan by force.

And the question is, does he think that we would stop it? Because if he thinks that we will stop it, he's not going to do it. If he thinks he will lose that war, he's not going to do it. But the danger with Donald Trump is that a lot of people think that he might not do anything. to stop it. You know, I've already explained why he might get dragged into this war anyway. But like, so it's a worst case scenario with Trump where people don't take his support of our allies seriously so they feel like they can run all over us if they want to. And then we might get dragged into the war anyway. But the important thing is that the stakes are really high here.

The stakes are high. Do you hear from your Republican colleagues because there's so much talk now about the state of the president's mental health? Do you hear anything from your Republican colleagues about the 25th Amendment? No, I've not heard anything. But there's no question that Donald Trump is not only all these bad things, and he is, he's also just getting KSina. I mean, this kind of comes back to another theme we've hit on in this conversation, which is, although the Democratic Party right now is known more for having, you know, a lot of calcified very old leadership. Donald Trump is really old as well.

And I think it's pretty obvious that he is also kind of losing it. And that doesn't make things less dangerous. It makes things more dangerous for our country. I have one more question, which might help people feel a bit more enthusiastic at the end of this. It's the beginning of the year. Lots of people have new health regimes. You are, well, you are, you remember once a Marine, always the Marine. right? What is your fitness regime? What are the basic things you learn in the Marine Corps that we, as normal people, can do some of in our own lives to stay fit long enough to see the democratic leadership rise again?

Do something. Like, always do something. And so I work out six out of seven days a week, although I often, you know, we'll kind of work out seven as well because I'm like, you know, but here's the point. I think your workout and my workout are probably very different. When you say just do something, like what's the minimum one can do? Okay, so just before this, I worked out with a bipartisan group. We still have a bipartisan workout group in the House gym that does sort of a cross-fit regimen. It's actually pretty tough. You'd be surprised by, you know, there are some members of Congress who are actually in really good shape, and I think it's a healthy thing that we have this bipartisan workout group.

But you don't have to do that. Like, you know, just go for a little run or a long walk, you know, just do some squats, you know, standing in your bedroom or whatever. But I always explain to people that, yes, I work out six days a week. I'm not a brilliant athlete. I just do this because it's good for my health. I'm sorry, I just do this because it's good for my physical health and it is necessary for my mental health in this job. I don't actually look forward to working out. Sometimes it's a chore, although I try to, you know, sometimes schedule workouts with friends and whatnot to make it a bit more enjoyable.

But I always feel better after I've done it. And I just think it's a good, healthy thing to do. So I'm going to try to keep it up. All right. Do something. Okay. We've ended on a positive note. We've ended on a positive note.

All right. Seth, thank you very much for joining us. We'd love to have you come back. can give us regular updates on what Earth is going on in Congress because it seems incomprehensible from the outside. Thank you so much for having me. So a reminder to leave us a comment. Tell us what you think about Seth Moulton's policies and his views on Mark Kelly, on RFK Jr., on Pete Higgs.

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