Moulton Talks Iran, Trump, And Veterans

As the showdown over the Obama Administration's Iran deal heats up in Congress, Representative Seth Moulton of the Massachusetts 6th district joined Jim Braude and Margery Eagan on Boston Public Radio. Moulton, who supports the Iran deal, discussed the fight to win over his colleagues in Congress and the passage of his first bill in the House last month, which makes it easier for small business to access capital.

• Moulton says that its not clear if the Iran deal will withstand a veto but its easy to come with criticisms on the deal. “Its much harder to do the analysis of the alternative… and realize that its still the best option we have to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.” Moulton weighs alternative options. “If we don’t accept this deal. We either go to war immediately or the only other thing is to negotiate another deal but everyone says the sanctions are going to fall apart… explain to me how do you negotiate a better deal with less leverage?” Moulton says Iran can have a weapon in weeks if the United States rejects the deal. “Even in a worst case scenario, if you think the only way to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon is to eventually go to war with them… the deal puts us in a better position because it gives us a more creditably to do so because we tried the diplomatic option first and it gives us more intelligence because we will be in the country inspecting the inspections.” 
• He says that defeating ISIS is a political problem that needs a comprehensive political and diplomatic plan. Moulton says the approach should not be limited by “killing operatives” but “killing them on social media” to have political opposition take their spot. Moulton says ISIS has caused a threat to so many states in the Middle East that there is an opportunity for “us to help bring them together”. Moulton suggests that the states need to “build an alliance… lets sit down at the table and really talk about what Syria is going to look like post-Saudi regime”.
• Moulton, who supports Hillary Clinton, is -- not surprisingly -- down on Donald Trump: “[he] was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He converted it to a gold plated spoon and added so much glitter that every time he has been eating from gold plated spoon this for his entire life… I think its gone to head and contaminated his thinking.” Moulton says that Trump speaks on the problems but a candidate needs to speak about the alternatives. “We don’t have enough jobs, student’s are getting crushed by student by loan debt, there to much dark money in the political system but we need someone to talk about the solutions not just complain about the problems. Just like the Iran deal”. 
• Congressman Moulton continues to get his medical assistance at the Veterans Affairs Hospital.  At the hospital, the employees could not find his records but he said he served 4-6 tours. “They tried to give me the best care and yet when I took my bag of medicine and opened my bag on capitol hill, it was not the right medication” he says. To improve veteran’s health care system, Moulton filed several bills that “aim at addressing the pipeline of talent in the VA to make sure that we are recruiting the right staff… educating them while they are there, incentivizing them to improve their knowledge and skill, and then trying and retain them.” He says these are incremental changes but they are working on bigger changes but “these are the first steps”.