Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal endorsed Seth Moulton for president, giving a much-needed sign of encouragement to the Massachusetts congressman’s struggling presidential campaign.
“Leadership in our country is first and foremost about character,” McChrystal said Thursday in an appearance alongside Moulton on MSNBC. “Second, I think about competence, not just personal competence, but the ability to shape and lead a honest, good team. And sort of lastly, about specific policies or politics. And so I’m endorsing Seth Moulton, I’ve known him for years, it’s as much personal as political.”
McChrystal previously endorsed Moulton when the Marine veteran challenged and defeated Democratic incumbent Rep. John Tierney in 2014. It was the retired general’s first-ever political endorsement.
Moulton, a Marine Corps veteran who served four combat tours in Iraq, failed to qualify for the first Democratic presidential primary debates in June or the upcoming debates on July 30 and 31. He barely registers in most presidential primary polls and raised $1.2 million from his late April campaign launch through the end of June, one of the smallest second-quarter hauls in the crowded primary field.
Moulton is outwardly unconcerned about being absent from the debate stage.
“I don’t think the summer debates are going to decide this election. Voters don’t go to the polls until February of next year,” Moulton said. “We’re inching up in the polls … We out-raised five of the candidates who were on the debate stage.”
During his presidential candidacy, Moulton, 40, has opened up about suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, proclaimed that “America is not a socialist country,” and challenged Biden to apologize for voting in favor of the Iraq War.
McChrystal led the International Security Assistance Forces in Afghanistan under President Barack Obama, but resigned in 2010 following a Rolling Stone profile that included comments from him and unnamed aides criticizing then-Vice President Joe Biden and other civilian officials.
