NOT NOT SAYING I TOLD YOU SO — Seth Moulton doesn’t have regrets about his role in pushing his party to pick a new nominee. The Salem Democrat was the third member of Congress to urge Joe Biden to call off his reelection campaign after the president’s calamitous debate performance — before the cascade that led to Biden’s announcement in July. Now Vice President Kamala Harris has gained ground in some key states where Biden was trailing, and her campaign’s record fundraising is paying off for down-ballot Democrats . It’s not all about vindication, Moulton insisted: “I just did what I thought was right. I spoke my mind,” Moulton said during an interview on NBC10 Boston’s “At Issue” Sunday. “The bottom line is that Joe Biden was going to lose to Donald Trump, and that's not an acceptable result. Kamala Harris is doing extraordinarily well,” he added, before noting that the race is still neck and neck. It may have come at a cost. Moulton acknowledged that he and Biden haven’t spoken since he pushed the president to step aside, in part through a Boston Globe op-ed detailing an interaction where, in Moulton’s telling, Biden didn’t recognize him. “I haven't heard from him, and so maybe that means there's some damage done [to our relationship]. But at the end of the day, I think President Biden knows that he did the right thing for the country,” Moulton said. And the benefits may outweigh whatever rift the move caused in the interim. Between boosted fundraising and a bump to voters’ eagerness to head to the polls with Harris atop the ticket, congressional Democratic candidates now stand a better chance of achieving Moulton’s goal of a Democratic House majority. He’s not the only one whose early call for Biden to step aside has aged well. Gov. Maura Healey was the first Democratic governor to nudge Biden to the exit , and an early endorser of Harris when she stepped up. The president bristled at reports that Healey called his post-debate position “irretrievable,” publicly urging him to “carefully evaluate” whether or not to stay in the race (after he already said he was sticking it out). But Healey has since earned a primetime speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention, and become a regular surrogate on the Sunday show circuit and the campaign trail. We’ll have to wait and see if it pays off in November. Even if Harris wins, former President Donald Trump has used the switch-up to claim the election is rigged against him. ****STEWARD***** GOOD MONDAY MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS . Keep: St. Elizabeth’s hospital in Brighton, which Healey announced the state had seized by eminent domain Friday. Toss: Steward Health CEO Ralph de la Torre, who has “amicably separated” from the company “on mutually agreeable terms,” the company told local news outlets over the weekend. De la Torre is still facing possible prison time after ignoring a congressional subpoena. Now, almost two months after Healey said “ good riddance, and goodbye ” to Steward Health Care, the state has reached its deadline to close the deal on a proposal that would extricate the company from Massachusetts. Massachusetts already shelled out tens of millions of dollars to keep the six existing Steward facilities running, but that funding is set to run out by the end of the day today. The state expects to pay hundreds of millions more over the next three years to help the hospitals transition to new leadership. Lawyers were still debating the details during a rare Sunday hearing yesterday. More on that from the Boston Herald. Meanwhile, questions remain about what will happen to the facility that until recently was Dorchester’s Carney Hospital. Boston City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune emphasized Sunday on WCVB’s “On the Record” that the community there depended on the since-shuttered local hospital for care. “We need to make sure that we have a healthcare facility there,” she said. TODAY — Healey has no public events. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Rep. Jim McGovern visit the Joe Czajkowski Farm at 11:30 a.m. in Hadley. Attorney General Andrea Campbell receives an award for public leadership from MASSCOSH in an awards ceremony at 6:30 p.m. in Boston. Tips? Scoops? Birthdays? Email me: kgarrity@politico.com
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