Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat who is running for U.S. Senate against incumbent Democrat Ed Markey, is apologizing for his post-2024-election comments suggesting the Democrats should shift their approach on transgender issues. The apology came Monday night in a televised debate, more than a year and a half after the original comments and less than a month before the Senate primary.
"I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that," Moulton, 47, said in the November 2024 interview with the New York Times. The remarks came after Trump soared to victory over Kamala Harris in part on the basis of a television commercial highlighting Harris’s response to a 2019 ACLU questionnaire in which she said she supported taxpayer-funded sex-change operations for illegal aliens. "Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you," the ad said.
"To the trans community, feeling the weight and the pain of the Trump administration policies, I deeply recognize your trauma, and I’m sorry if my comments hurt you. That was not my intention," Moulton said during the debate. "I’m a proud sponsor of the transgender bill of rights, a proud repeat cosponsor of the Equality Act, and I have a 100 percent record with the Human Rights Campaign. If you’re in the trans community, or you’re a trans kid feeling the weight of the Trump administration and the Supreme Court, you matter, you’re valued, and I will always have your back."
Markey faulted Moulton for blaming the 2024 election loss on the Democratic defense of trans kids. "He blamed those kids for the loss. He threw them under the political bus," Markey said. "We should have been loving those kids … we should have been embracing them. Instead, what Congressman Moulton did was he threw them under the bus."
"I think we should be willing to talk about these issues, but I stand 100 percent with the trans community," Moulton said.
The exchange over which candidate is a better ally of the transgender "community" was just one exchange in an hourlong debate in which each candidate identified himself as progressive and each one portrayed the other as corrupt. The two Democrats attacked each other for any moderate stances while touting their own left-wing positions.
"I am the progressive in this race," Markey insisted, toting endorsements from Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.
Markey criticized Moulton for voting for Trump’s trillion dollar defense budget. Moulton criticized Markey for voting for the Iraq War, during which Moulton served as a U.S. Marine. Markey criticized Moulton for voting against a motion to impeach Trump. Moulton said he had "voted repeatedly to impeach Donald Trump."
Markey said he supported Medicare for All. Moulton said he supported "universal health care" but would leave the Veterans Administration healthcare system in place on the theory that "competition brings down costs."
Moulton talked about "the fascist Trump agenda." Markey said "Trump is acting as a dictator." Moulton called Secretary of State Rubio a "snake," faulting Markey for voting to confirm him. "Look what he’s doing to trans people across America," Moulton said.
Markey called Secretary of War Hegseth a "war criminal."
Both candidates said they wanted to abolish United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Moulton went further and said the ICE agents should be "prosecuted."
Both candidates said they’d deal with Iran with an Obama-style nuclear deal. Both said Israel was guilty of war crimes in Gaza and said they opposed additional military funding for Israel. Markey said Israel was "destroying hospitals and schools, creating hunger." He did not mention that Hamas terrorists had used the hospitals and schools as bases. Moulton said he had refused support from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and returned contributions.
Markey said he rejects "all fossil fuel money."
Moulton called for a "wealth tax on the megamillionaires" to fund universal pre-k.
Markey said he wished he hadn’t voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993. "That was a mistake," he said in retrospect.
Neither would commit to backing Senator Schumer of New York as Democratic leader. "We need that debate about new leadership," Markey said. Said Moulton, "it should not be Chuck Schumer.’
In addition to the policy-based attacks, the candidates made personal attacks. Markey said Moulton had "enriched himself" with "ill-gotten gains" in "private equity sweetheart deals." Moulton said Markey was spending more time in Maryland than in Massachusetts. Moulton also said Markey’s financial disclosures were incomplete. Moulton said Markey’s name appeared in the Epstein files. Markey said he’d never met Epstein and accused Moulton of "character assassination."
Markey is 80 years old and was first elected to Congress in 1976, 50 years ago. "I think we need to have an honest discussion about age limits," Moulton said. At one point in the debate, Markey showed his age by misspeaking, accusing Moulton of having voted for a "$1 trillion budget for the war in Vietnam, war in Iran." Wrong war by half a century.
In a different state in a different year, a Republican general election candidate might perhaps be able to take advantage of these dynamics to depict the Democrats as old, spineless, or captured by the extreme left and out of touch with mainstream voters. In Massachusetts this year, the Republican candidate, John Deaton, hasn’t thus far attracted much money or attention. The Democratic primary election is scheduled for September 1.
But the episode has significance beyond Massachusetts, for the national Democratic Party. Moulton’s original comments in November 2024 were made in the context of an election postmortem assessment that the Democrats had moved too far to the left. That view seems largely forgotten at the moment as many Democrats, like Moulton, try to emulate New York mayor Zohran Mamdani and other Bernie Sanders types. There will be a chance to resume the conversation in a 2028 Democratic presidential primary—or in articles after a 2028 Democratic election loss.
