U.S. Congressman Seth Moulton (D-MA), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, objected to President Trump’s remarks in his address to the nation on Wednesday concerning what Trump described as the U.S. military’s plan to hit Iran “extremely hard” over the next two to three weeks.
Moulton, a retired U.S. Marine captain who fought in the Iraq War, told MSNOW: “I know active duty Marines who now refer to Pete Hegseth’s department as the department of war crimes. That’s because, under Pete Hegseth’s leadership, they do things like this, destroy civilian infrastructure, which, just to be clear, is a war crime. It’s meant to hurt civilians. This is the same stuff that we criticize Vladimir Putin for doing in Ukraine.”
Moulton: I know active duty Marines who now refer to Pete Hegseth’s department as the department of war crimes. That’s because they do things like this, destroy civilian infrastructure, which, just to be clear, is a war crime. It’s meant to hurt civilians.
This is the same… pic.twitter.com/dIDzJy2ZzT
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 2, 2026
[Note: The New York Times reported Sunday that “the Pentagon used missiles untested in combat in a deadly attack that struck civilian sites near a military compound on Feb. 28, according to visual evidence examined by The Times and weapons experts.”]
Moulton, who is running for the U.S. Senate in 2026, challenging incumbent Senator Ed Markey in the Massachusetts Democratic primary, added: “Donald Trump has no plan to end this war that he started and is now losing.” He added of the president, “He’s kicked the hornet’s nest, got his foot stuck in it, and he doesn’t know how to get out. So what is he doing? He’s resorting to war crimes. It’s an embarrassment.”
Moulton isn’t the only Democratic lawmaker to land on the words “embarrass” and “losing” to describe the U.S. action in Iran so far. Responding to Secretary of State Marco Rubio‘s claims about the U.S. goals in the war, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) asserted the U.S. is “badly and embarrassingly losing this war.”
Here’s the problem. These are all “tactical” objectives. They are not strategy. Because there IS NO strategy.
1/ Let me take these “objectives” 1-4 to explain – based upon what I’ve learned in briefings – why we are badly and embarrassingly losing this war. https://t.co/WULxwlEx0N
— Chris Murphy
(@ChrisMurphyCT) March 30, 2026