PITTSFIELD — To U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, the United States' incursion into Venezuela on Friday without prior congressional approval was just the latest example of President Trump’s “frankly insane” approach to governing.

But while much of his frustration is reserved for Trump, the Democrat also lays some of the blame at the feet of his own party for allowing the president to return to power in 2024 and lead without sufficient opposition.

“We haven't challenged him effectively,” Moulton said. “I think we can all agree on that. And the bottom line is that the old playbook, the establishment approach, is not working.”

Junking that playbook is at the heart of Moulton’s bid for Senate, where he hopes to defeat two-term incumbent U.S. Sen. Ed Markey in the 2026 midterm election. During a meeting with The Eagle's editorial board on Tuesday, Moulton, who represents the 6th Congressional District that includes Salem, diagnosed the Democratic Party’s main weakness as a lack of coherent policy stances on major issues.

“[Voters have] got to be able to see some leadership that's going to take us forward,” said U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton during and editorial board meeting at The Eagle on Tuesday.

“Democrats need to be more outspoken and more simple and clear about how wrong this is,” he said of Trump’s decision to have military forces oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. That clarity of purpose also needs to extend to the party’s core issues, he said, whether it’s immigration, artificial intelligence or public transportation.

“[Voters have] got to be able to see some leadership that's going to take us forward,” he said.

Moulton announced in October that he planned to challenge Markey for his Senate seat. After serving as a House representative for over a decade, Moulton said he now feels that his leadership would be more effective beyond a single district.

“There are also a lot of things I would like to do that are ‘whole of Massachusetts’ issues,” he said. While he has grand ambitions for a nationwide high-speed rail system, for example, he said he wants to see public transportation strengthened at the state level.

“I also just want to, at a local level, make it faster than driving to get around Massachusetts, because that's actually the transformative change we need to dramatically increase affordable housing and access to jobs,” he said.

Among other priorities, he described a desire for Democrats to enact a clearer stance on immigration based on three core tenets: Prosecuting Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents who violate policies; encouraging legal immigration while discouraging illegal immigration; and creating a simpler path to citizenship.

“[That platform] happens to be one that I think the majority of Americans could get behind,” he said. “But when our party isn't even able to articulate that from our leadership, then we've got to change.”

In calling for fresh faces in the Democratic Party, Moulton certainly isn’t alone. Promising a new approach to politics is becoming a familiar tactic for aspiring Democratic leaders nationwide seeking to energize a disenchanted voter base after Kamala Harris’s defeat in the 2024 election. From Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral victory in New York City to Abigail Spanberger’s gubernatorial win in Virginia, securing elections now seems like more a possibility for young, left-leaning candidates.

Moulton is also currently outpacing Markey in campaign funding, with the Boston Globe reporting he has over $3 million to draw on heading into 2026 while Markey has $2.7 million.

But Markey, an incumbent who’s filled the seat since 2013, will prove difficult to take down. In 2020, he successfully defeated a primary challenger by over 100,000 votes. Moulton hopes to persuade voters to embrace a new candidate by capitalizing on Markey's age (he will turn 80 this year) and characterizing him as a member of the Democratic old guard that needs to be voted out.

It won’t be the first time that Moulton, 47, has pointed out a fellow Democrat’s age as a liability. He previously voiced concerns about former President Joe Biden’s fitness to run for office in 2024, and feels that Democrats did not properly address voters’ concerns on the issue.

“There are a lot of Americans who just don't trust our party,” he said. “People could see with their own eyes that Biden was not ready to run for reelection. And again, the establishment Democratic Party just protected Joe Biden, which ended up really hurting our party.”

Moulton has also upset members of his party before, weathering ire from Democratic peers and constituents in 2024 after he suggested in a New York Times interview that the party’s stance on transgender athletes alienated voters. (In subsequent interviews, he has clarified that he felt the issue should be more open to debate and discussion within the party).

While he emphasized his belief that Democrats should be vocal about furthering their goals, Moulton said he also believes bipartisan collaboration would be essential to a successful Senate term.

“You have to be able to have respectful relationships across the aisle to get things done, at the same time as you're willing to just fight Republicans tooth and nail," he said. "A lot of these guys are such cowards. They know that Trump's terrible. They know that they don't want to support wars in Venezuela.”

Moulton, currently a resident of Salem, visited Pittsfield as part of a Western Massachusetts listening tour that also included a brief stop in Springfield. As a representative whose district spans the area north of Boston, Moulton admitted he still needed to familiarize himself more deeply with other areas of the state.

“I'm going to be a senator who genuinely represents Massachusetts and spends a lot of time in the parts of Massachusetts where I don't live,” he said, naming Western Massachusetts and South Coast as examples. “These are places that I need to learn more to represent better.”