Wake that ass up in the morning. Breakfast Club Morning.
Everybody is the DJ Envy just hilarious. Charlemagne the guy. We are the breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building, Congressman Eric Swawell.
Welcome, Hey, thanks for having me on. How I'm good, I'm good.
You got such an interesting story because you're a Democrat out of California. Yeah, but you were raised your parents were Republican. Yeah, so you were a Republican. At what made you? You know, so to speak?
They would tell you. They would blame college. I was the first to go to college, and so they're like, oh, he got brainwashed by those college liberal professors. But no, the truth is my my dad was a cop. My mom worked a number of odd jobs, made wedding cakes, did ceramics, ran like a very large, probably unlicensed daycare facility with me and my little brothers. And I was the first one to be able to kind of get out.
And when I left the town, I grew up and was called Dublin and everyone around us called it scrubling. I started to realize that, and I think very much resented that. It felt like there were like two pathsive opportunity in America, like certainly in my community, which was like if your parents knew someone, or they had like means, or they had connections, like, you could go and try and be anything. And if they didn't, then you had to like work your ass off, probably twice as hard
as anyone else. And so I started looking at like different political parties, and I thought, well, Democrats believe in kind of a free market approach, which is like when we're at our best, I think that if you work hard, no matter who you are, you should do better and be in dream bigger and Republicans I saw it was like a free for all approach. The truth is I went to college on a soccer scholarship, so I never
really thought beyond the next game. It was only when I got injured that I had a high school mentor a teacher. He said, why don't you go to DC rehab the injury in turn for your member of Congress and see if you liked it. And I happened to
be there some of two thousand and one. I loved it, and I was working for a very moderate Democratic Member of congress'r name was Allen Tusher, and saw that place as a center of gravity, a place that could get things done, and I knew I didn't, especially after September eleven, being there on September eleven, that I didn't want to go back to sports anymore. It's kind of seemed trivial compared to what was going on in the world. But yeah,
my parents are still Republicans today. I have three little brothers. They don't talk about it that much, but I'm pretty sure I know who they voted for. And I married a girl from southern Indiana who grew up in the same town as the Pences. Her mom was the Pence family dentist until she retired last year. So I have to go on Fox News if anyone in my family's going to see me on TV.
Was it a particular moment or situation that made you be like, I don't lean towards conservative anymore.
It was in the Bush presidency, you know, seeing a lot of people that I grew up with go off, you know, to a rock and feeling like it was bullshit, like what they were being told, and that it was really more just a power grab and an oil grab and it wasn't about the reasons that they were being told. I think that was kind of that completed for me,
the transformation. But it was really more about opportunity because, as I said, like I grew up in a very like working class home, and the towns that were around us were very wealthy. And so because I played competitive soccer, I got to see in our town didn't have a
competitive soccer team. So I played in like the wealthier towns teams, and I got to see like what the richer kids thought of the poorer kids by playing on their teams, And honestly, it was a little bit of just like resenting that they were able to take shortcuts and people who worked hard, like they just they had to do it twice as hard. And I thought, well, one party actually thinks if we all have about the same opportunity, and then you're defined by how hard you work,
not by who you know. And I thought the Democratic Party embodied that more than the Republican Party.
You think we'll ever get back to centrist politics ever again? I hope.
So I mean I was also you know, I came of age when Bill Clinton was president, and I thought, you know, he was very good at trying to find like what's possible, and I see myself as wanting to do this job, you know, to solve problems and be in the solution's business. And today it feels very like just zero sum, like whoever wins the other side says
that this is it, and that actually goes back. You know, you had the search and destroy under Bill Clinton when they wanted to do anything over a sex scandal to destroy the guy. And then George Bush comes in, and I would say Democrats are probably guilty of saying like this is, you know, the most existential threat to our country. You know, we're going to lose our country if George Bush is reelected. And then Obama comes in and you
get like this birtherism bullshit. And then when the real threat came and Donald Trump, I think most Americans are like, Okay, that's just what you guys say every time. That's just what you say. So when the real threat was there, we probably didn't appreciate it.
I want to ask, what do you think the biggest thing the Democrats got wrong.
In the last election? Immigration and public safety? Break it down, So forty percent of my constituents were born outside the United States. That's probably one of the largest groups of immigrant communities you'll find in America, and we also happen to be today because we've embraced immigration, one of the wealthiest districts now in America. So there's a straight line between having people who left everything showed resilience created something,
and like the wealth they can create in their community. Right, So when you have like legal immigration channels, there's no end. But the American people they're not going to let you solve the workforce crisis in agriculture, in hospitality, in restaurants, food and beverage. They're not going to let you attack that until they see security at the border. And the perception that the order was out of control and the reality that the border was out of control was a problem.
So I think if we had just doubled down and said, yeah, we want border security, we want if people are going to make asylum claims, we're gonna you know, put resources there to adjudicate those claims as quickly as possible. But if it's seeing that all you have to do is just come to the United States or like cross an insecure border and then you can have access to resources. People aren't going to want to hear your plan to have a million people come here and work on the
jobs that really need to be filled. And so I think we just weren't seen strong enough on that issue. And then on law and order, I think we rightfully fought for criminal justice reform rightfully, but we were too too much identified as like a defund the police party. And I think you can.
Have both because again I'll let you finish, but I want to ask you something about that.
Yeah, people want people want safety in their community. They also don't want like the wrong person going to jail or people going to shell for petty shit, but they want to feel safe in the community. And we weren't perceived as a party that was going to keep you sicke.
I was going to ask you.
So.
My father's a retired police officer as well. One of my dad's biggest things and even some of the police officers that I speak with, is that when people criminals get arrested, it feels like they are a kid for more than a victim. A lot of times they go in, there's no bail, they come right back out, they do the crime over and over again, there's no harsh anything.
When it comes to it, they don't get arrested. If they do jail times, usually community services have to spend a week and in jail, and it feels like there's career criminals doing the same thing over and over again, and a lot of people in the public feel like it's not safe for them. What are your thoughts on that.
Yeah, I get that perception. And I was a prosecutor in Oakland for seven years and it was very frustrating that many times it felt like the victims had none of the rights and the bad guys had all of
the rights. And so for me, it's really focus on like serious violent sexual those three if you like, throw the book at those three, right, and throw the resources at those three, and then you show compassion and redemption for non serious, non sexual, non violent, and believe that those folks you know, have a pathway into our community. I think you can get it right. But right now, I'll give you an example in California, So we had a prosecutor in my county who would not charge gun crime.
So if someone committed like a homicide or an attempt at homicide, she would not charge the gun crime. That could add like twenty five years to life and put away the worst in the community. In Oakland's crime weight, soared, and so I led a recall effort against her because people just weren't feeling safe. She also refused to prosecute any misdemeanors at all, and we recalled her with sixty
two percent in Oakland and Berkeley. And so that I think shows that even liberal communities want public safety compassion. They don't believe that. You know, people are irredeemable. But at the end of the day, if people don't feel safe, no one's gonna invest in your community. You're not going to have great schools and your home values. If you're able to buy a house, it's just going to tank. And so you have to focus on public city.
You mentioned two things. You mentioned border, and you mission law and order, which I agree with because you always say I don't care what your race is, what your sexuality is, what your gender is. If you're an American and you want two things. You want to have some money in your pocket, and you want to feel safe. I think what people missed about the border issue was
it wasn't just a matter of security. It was a matter of people felt like these individuals were coming into America and getting more resources than people who had been here for years. And I think one of the most brilliant things that Republicans did was start shipping those migrants to the Chicagos, into the New York Cities and to the Mars pavilions. Because then it became a problem for those major cities because it's easy to say, hey, we're
sanctuary cities if you're all the way up here. So if you're really sanctuary cities, didn't take care of them, and that's when people in those communities started complaining about, oh, how are they coming here and they're getting you know, room and board, how are they getting money in their pocket? But we've been here suffering all of those years. So my question is why have Democrats lost the economy war? Because since World War Two, whenever it is a Democrat
in the White House, the economy does better. Why don't you lead what a message that?
Yeah, and to your point, if you're a family in Long Island and you see folks staying at hotels that you would not be able to afford to to put your family in, yeah, I can see why that, you know, creates resentment. It was a cheap shot what those governors did, but I mean the they won the messaging war. On that, and we're still on defense. Look on the economy, where we're at right now is we're in this Trump slump where four oh one case have become two to one case.
The Trump tariffs are jacking up the costs of everything at home, depot, Walmart, Target, and so people are starting to pay. But I think the way we win. But things weren't much better on the Biden either. Under Biden, you know, and it was insulting for people to scream Bidenomics and talk about how good the economy is doing and the GDP is up and the stock market is up to people don't talking about ain't got no stocks?
Yeah, yeah, So how can you lie to people about what they're actually putting in their pocket?
So to me, it should be if you're willing to bet on yourself and work hard, you should have a country that's going to bet on you, right, And so home ownership should be within reach for anyone who works full time. And so I have legislation that gives twenty five thousand dollars down payment to any teacher, for example, who's going to teach within their community, and I would bump it up for the higher cost areas. Also, I think for small businesses, regulations do get in the way.
You know, small small and medium sized businesses are competing against giants, and the giants have like in house legal teams that can cut through all the regulations that can hire a lot obvious to find a work around, and small and medium sized businesses see these regulations as some of the biggest hurdles. And so I would look at, for example, for a small business, if you start a small business in a community, I would let you defer your taxes for the first three years you got to
pay them. But once you hit three years, which is about how long it takes to you know, get not post revenue but post profit, then you can start paying your taxes. But I would do more to give people incentives to invest early on and allow them to ride out those early years so that we are an entrepreneur entrepreneurial society. And I think that's what where democrats are at our best is when we bet on people who are willing to bet on themselves.
I think democrats miss people though, because when you talk about home ownership, yeah, and small businesses, that's literally like a middle class thing, like like you know, you know how hard it is to be able to afford a home. Like some people I'm talking about are just folks who want to find an apartment that's not three thousand thousand and one. You know, they just wanted to have a couple of meals on the table, you know, throughout the day. For they ideas like this that like we never speak
to that. It feels like we always talked to the middle class, yeah and above that, but we never talked to who's lord.
And I want us to be aspirational. And I think a weakness of the Democratic Party is my parents would tell you when people told them that as Republicans they were voting against their interests because we lived in thirteen different houses, I went to eleven different schools before I graduated high school, and people would say, well, you're Republican and you're voting for Republicans. The Democrats are the ones that are going to protect people in your economic class.
And my parents, my mom would say, my interest is not being poor, and so she saw the Republican Party is talking to her, as we are aspirational for you, and I think Democrats at our best, Yes, I want us to have more inventory in housing so that the cost of housing comes down. And in California, frankly, a lot of the laws in California getting the way of builders and developers bringing more inventory, you know, on stock,
so that you can have more affordable housing. Yes, I want that for people, just basic housing, Yes, that is a need. But I want people to aspire for ownership because I think when you own like a piece of America like that fulfills the American promise that if you work hard, like you can own something. And for most Americans, the greatest source of wealth is their home. But more and more Americans, especially my generation, home ownership is out
of reach. I believe I'm still paying off student loan debt. I've got about eighty thousand dollars in student loan debt today. And many people like me who chase that dream of being the first to go to college, they're just in the quicksand of student loan debt and they think that the American promise is bullshit because they don't own a
piece of it. So I want us to be more aspirational put more housing in America so that you increase the inventory and you increase the ability of people, you know, as I said, to have skin in the ownership game.
Well, how do you get those poor and disenfranchise people to even and get to a mindset of aspirational because right now they're just trying to survive.
Yes, it starts in school and it's gonna get worse with AI. So what we're seeing right now with AI is that you're gonna have people who learn the skills of AI and they will do better for themselves because they know it. And then you're gonna have a whole generation of people who never even had it in their classroom.
But I think what you said as well is is if you can give people that down payment, right, help them with their first down payment, also what they do with teachers and police officers in certain areas, help them with their taxes if they live in certain areas. If you do that, it gives people three to five years to at least get on their feet and to start off, and that gives them the foundation to at least help them out.
If that people are able to do it.
But if you help them out with their first down payment and they and their taxes is still high, and their state taxes are still high, and then aid prices through the roof and orange juices through the roof, it's gonna be they're gonna lose their home.
Yeah. And when you're taxing wages and the wealth, you know, their income is not and you know, wages salary and their taxes are much lower because it's it's in you know, either stocks or funds, investments. Yeah, and so you have unfairly set up the equation where wage workers are actually proportionally pay more correct of what they make. And that's wrong. And I would I would flip that.
I want to ask you, is the Republican Party a bigger threat to democracy than foreign adversaries?
Right now? Yes?
Why is it?
They're the accomplices in the Republican Party to Donald Trump because they are so afraid of this guy, and it's it's it is like a cult, like they are terrified. Well, one, they believe, many of them see in him someone who's willing to do what they've always wanted to do but were never able to do. And then the others who could pump the brakes and stop it, and the margins are close enough in Congress that it just takes a few to stop it. Those who know better are terrified.
So I I hear this in the so that there's a couple of places I go where I get the real from these guys, Right, I hear like, what is really going on? It's the house gym. So there's this members gym where only members can work out. The fitness staff.
They don't look like da shape at all, but go ahead.
That's right. They spend more time there, but only members are allowed, so you can have and there's no cameras, you know, no phones allowed, Thank you, Anthony Wiener. Those photos came from the members chairs. And that's where I hear like, what's really going on? You know, at like the workout stations or being on the treadmill next to someone's elliptical. And I used to think it was that they were afraid of losing their jobs, and it's not
that they're afraid of losing their jobs. They're afraid of their personal security. And one member recently told me, he said, look, my wife told me like, don't The phrase was, don't be the tallest poppy in the field, Like if you speak out, life's going to be hell for your kids. I'm going I'm not gonna enjoy going to church. We're not going to be welcome at the country club. We're gonna get all these death threats. So they look at like Adam Kinzinger and Liz Chaine and they're like, that
is hell. Why would I want that? Sad? True to me, it's like find another job, right, Like, there's a lot of other job. I hope I work with people who are otherwise employable, Like this isn't the only job you could get if you're in Congress. But for a lot of them, it's just personal security because it's just one like Trump or Musk tweet. And now because I live
it every day. Now your life's turned upside down and you have the death threats, and you probably don't have the resources to protect yourself, and so that's a big chunk of it. Then for the others, who I call accomplices, you've got this professional wrestling environment, so I will bump
into people in the gym. Give you an example after during the second impeachment, I was one of the prosecutors for Donald Trump, and on a break from that trial, I was in the restroom right off the Senate floor and Ted Cruz is at the sink next to me, and as we're both washing our hands, he puts his fist out and he goes, Hey, we never met. I'm Ted, and I'm like, what the fuck? And I'm like, hey, Ted.
And the night before he was on Fox News just roasting me by name, and he could tell I was confused, and he goes, I want you to know you're doing a really good job out there. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And then it occurred to me, Oh, like, we're in the bathroom, there's no camera, we're not in a hearing. He's not on Fox News. It's just professional wrestling.
Like when we're in the hearing room or we're on the floor, he's going to hit me over the head with a steel chair, because that's what he thinks the fans want. I call the fans constituents. He thinks of these folks as fans. But when no one's around, it's just two guys growing out because to him, it's just entertainment. And so there's so many of my colleagues who I don't even know what the hell they believe, because they act one way on camp camera and then a completely
different way when the camera's off. And the way that they're acting on camera is to completely enable and be accomplish. As to Donald Trump.
Isn't that all of y'allo?
I hope not.
I just finished reading the original sin. So when I hate you talking, I'm like, well, what was the Democrats excuse when they chose to be accomplices in the cover up of bideness, physical and mental decline. It's the same thing y'all did to say, y'all got on television and pretended to act like everything was fine, knowing behind the scenes he was not the one.
Well, I don't think many of us were behind the scenes to believe. I mean, I didn't spend much time with President Biden behind the scenes. I wasn't.
I didn't spend no time with him at all.
And you saw immediately you had your two eyes. I got it. I got it. But what we're the difference, I would argue, is that what Donald Trump is doing right now, you know, to our democracy, you know, completely completely taking a wrecking ball to the rule of law.
But he's doing it because Democrats saw what was happening with President Biden. We knew that he should have been a transitional president and didn't push for him to say, hey, mister Biden, good job you won twenty twenty, but we need something to do with twenty twenty four.
I don't know if you remember I was the pastor torch guy like I was in the first presidential debate. My campaign lasted probably as long as this interview, but during the debate I said past the torch for that reason.
I wanted a generational change then. And yes, would it have been better if he had done that once he had all of those successes, you know, going into the midterms, absolutely, And I do think going forward we would be best served if the DNC put in place a rule that said we will not nominate a president who is collecting Social Security. So if you're old enough to collect Social Security,
you probably should not be president. I think we have to be the party of the future going forward, So make the cutoff sixty seven.
Age of cognitive decline though, because I mean, Joe, I mean it's perception.
Though, it's perception.
Donal Trump's only a few years, a few years younger than by somebody like Bernie any right.
Yeah, and he's crazy. He's fucking crazy. Like you listen to the guy. He spoke to West Point Cadets the other day and he was talking about trophy wives, right, and everyone there's like, wait, we this is the guy that's sending us off, you know, into battle. No, he's he's losing it too. And what about Bernie Finn. I think we need to pass the torch. Like we have plenty of you know, great leaders. We have a deep bench that could lead us, you know that are not
in their eighties. And so if we want to be the party of the future, if we want to have ideas of the future, if we want to take on ai right, if we want to understand these issues that our kids are going to have to inherit, I think you need to look like the future. So I believe what I said back in twenty nineteen at that debate, and I believe it now. And I hope we get that message when we start to think about twenty twenty eight. But we can't even have free and fair elections in
twenty twenty eight if we don't win the midterms. If we lose the midterms, forget it. There will not be free and fair elections in this country. I agree, I agree with you. I do have a question.
You know, we look at Donald Trump, and Donald Trump has been signing executive orders, pardoning his people, his core to the people in the public looks like he looks out for his own.
Yeah, the Democrats don't look look like they look out for their own.
Talk about that a little bit because somebody who sees that says, well, why am I messing with Biden? Where Biden wouldn't pardon his best friend, he partner the son, wouldn't partner his best friend with Donald Trump or pardon anybody that rides.
From We definitely pardoned a lot of his best friend. Yeah, he wouldn't Maryland. I think the issue is Democrats are weak with power. Say it again, Democrats are weak when we have power. So we had the White House, the House, in the Senate, and not a mom in America would say that her kid was safer at school. All right, Right, So I have three little kids. My two oldest, they
do mass shooter drills. They're eight, and they're and so they would look at Democrats and say, wait, we gave you that Holy Trinity, White House, Senate House, and y'all couldn't pass background checks or an assault weapons ban and you let what like the filibuster get in the way of it. So if Democrats in Republicans, by the way, they they will lean in with thin power and pass unpopular positions. So if we were as strong with power to pass popular positions, imagine how people would perceive us.
Almost eighty percent of gun owning Republicans believe in background checks, and we couldn't even get that done. So I think the next president and the next Democratic majority has to flex when we have power. I think we have to also we have to have an anti corruption agenda as well. I think we have to clean up and clear out the Supreme Court, frankly, because I think Donald Trump is now just saying it out loud that he corruptly appointed
judges to the Supreme Court. He's in this little fight with Leonard Leo and he said, I was told these judges and these justices on the courts, you know, we're going to go my way. And he's upset that some of them mar I mean, he's saying out loud that he has corrupted the courts. So we need to put in place. I think term limits on the court. I think we need to have a code of ethics for these justices. I don't think members of Congress should be
trading stocks. I don't trade individual stocks. Apparently that's why I'm still in staking on debt. Yeah, but I do see the opportunity for us, you know, to win the midterms, win the presidency, and flex with power and get rid of the filibuster and show people that when we have power, we know what to do with it.
They should have been got rid of Phil. I want to ask you this about Donald Trump. Why do a lot of Democrats still talk like Donald Trump is campaigning? Like when I hear y'all speak, it's like everything is anti Trump, anti Trump, anti Trump, which I understand because you know, he is doing a lot of things that I would consider corrupting, unconstitutional. But he's in the white House, all right, Yeah, Like you're not running against him any more.
You still talk like you're campaigning against him, like you're trying to convince America he's bad. He's bad, he's bad. He's in the white House, he's the president. There has to be another scritity.
Well, the strategy should be to tie him to the Republican accomplices, because because those are the folks who you can hold accountable in two years. Right, You're not going to be able to vote for Donald Trump next November, but you can vote for the Republicans that allow these tariffs, you know, to happen. You can vote, you know, for the Republicans who have taken away, you know, your access
to healthcare. You can vote for the Republicans who have enabled the doctors who do cancer research at the UNIH you know, to be fired. By the way, there's a brain drain happening right now where European and Canadian leaders are calling our best cancer researchers, our best cybersecurity experts, our best engineers and saying I'll give you a visa, I'll fund your research, come here. And so we are
losing the best. So we have to tie Trump's actions to those who are also complicit, because you can actually hold them account and you can vote them out.
So what about when you see people like Elon Musk speaking out against the GOPS, you know, Mega Bill, saying that it's going to add money into the deficit. All you I respect that, Yeah, I respect. I've been seeing a lot of people in the GOP do that. To me, that's something that I never even used to see Democrats
do in regards to Biden. So to your point, what I think is going to happen is people are just going to lean back towards more just a traditional conservative because they still seem like they're being honest and the Democrats still feel like they full of shit.
We have that trust deficit because of what happened in the last election. And then that's why I think the best way to address it is to promise that you're going to look like the party of the future and say, you know what, like we're going to nominate someone who looks like the future. I think that acknowledges the issue in the last election. Contrast yourself with who the current
president is. And by the way, it's going to be a shit show for them to sort out who their nominee is twenty eight because you have the question of whether Trump would run again, whether it would be a se I can't.
Even be discussing it.
No, no, because if we lose the midterms, by the way, it doesn't matter. So the midterms is my focus in time Trump's actions to those who are voting on all of this in the midterms, that's the way to win. But our message has to be, as I said, aspirational that if you bet on yourself, you will have a government that'll bet on you. That's how I'm approaching this.
I'm doing town halls in Republican districts twice a month where they won't hold town halls, and I'm seeing not just the Democratic base show up, but Republicans, Independence, and a lot of veterans, a lot of service member hats at these town halls because no one has fired more veterans and no one's enabled it more than Republicans in Congress. And so we have a real opportunity in the midterms. We need just three seats and we can cut our time in hell in half by winning the midterms.
I was reading a Wall Street Journal yesterday and they asked the question about David Hall. We had David hallgill Be a couple weeks ago, and the question was that David Hog Democrats were nightmare or their savior.
I'm on David's board, and i was on his board when he founded it. I've known him since Parkland because that's the issue I care the most about. Look, David's not wrong that the question is not are you far left or center left? It's will you bring old tactics or new tag agree? And if you're not up to bring new tactics to take on what's happening, then these times are revealing who should lead and who should leave.
I agree. So, I mean, I think that anybody who is not putting up the proper fight, they should be primary. But I think it's going to take Democrats. When you talk about the future of the Democratic Party, the future of the Democratic Party is going to be you know, it's going to take some of those people, now that's the future, to throw the old regime under the bus well.
And it's going to take like this Avengers, like model of Jasmine Crockett, Maxwell Frost, Robert Garcia, people that you'd not seen before just step up. And then we're going to get to the end of this year and we're gonna win in Virginia and New Jersey in those governor's races. It's gonna give us momentum, and then the leader becomes I think the the leader is today, but the publicly perceived leader is Hakim Jeffers, right, because he's got to
make the case. He's that we're winning the House. He's terrible, but that he's the leader of the party. And he's got in my position only yeah, but he's he's got he's the if we win, he's the speaker, right, So he's got to make the case in the fall that this is the agenda, these are the seats win there, and now we have the majority of the House.
The reason I Donald trust guy like Hakim is because he's so willing to still bend a knee to the old regime. He's not going to ever speak out against Chuck Schumer. He's never going to do that.
But I can.
But you're not the leader.
I want the leader.
I want hakm Jeffries to speak out against jucku Wan. When chuckx Human says, hey, we got to support this bill that Donald Trump is doing, you got to say no, we gotta hold the line. You have to be willing to speak out against people in your own party. That's the only way to gain trust from people.
And you've seen, at least on the House side that we've held the line. Right. Not a single one of us voted for reconciliation. No one voted to keep you know, the the Doge government open when that vote came in March. And as I said, I have seen colleagues who no one knew their name until a couple months ago emerge and that's encouraging to me. It just shows that there
is a deep bench. And that's why I think being the party of the future has to be our priority because the past was rejected last November.
Why should we have a trust the Democratic Party after they lied to us so long about bread and Biden. And I'm big on this because I just read the original sin and I'm just like, I don't see I think that Democrats have tried every strategy except for two things. Honesty encourage.
Yeah, well, there's a lot of people who are courageous right now in the Democratic Party. Our bread and butter issue are danced with. The one that brought you is healthcare. People have always trusted us on healthcare. That's our issue, from President Johnson to President Obama to when Donald Trump to take it away. That's how we won the House in twenty eighteen. And now this Reconciliation bill is going
to take fourteen million people off their health care. We're not only going to protect healthcare because I think protecting health care is not enough. We need to invest in cures. And these motherfuckers are firing cancer doctors. So we have a real clean contrast. We're for cures, they're for cancer, right like that, So like, that's why you should trust us.
Because forty percent of Americans are going to get a phone call from a doctor to say I'm sorry you have cancer, And so you're gonna if it doesn't come to you, it's gonna come to someone you know. And so you want the party that believes in your health care and that you have a right to fight it and not go broke. And I think we have a chance to do that.
Do you think, well, I know Democrats do have a messaging problem, because it's almost like Democrats love faxing figures, but Republicans talk to people's gut, their emotion. When will we all learn to hit back emotionally?
We think messaging is winning a Harvard Law School moot court competition, and I think messaging is winning a gut check at the bar or the bus stop. And so it means just speaking plainly. And when you see the other side elect a thirty four count felon, you should probably see yourself as liberated to just say what you believe and not be so polished and scripted and try and project what you think a politician should sound like.
Because people can call bullshit, and they're calling bullshit, and so I hope what you're seeing now is more and more of my colleagues liberated. Can it produce some cringe moments, yes, But the other part of this is to always be on, like always beyond. And I'll give you an example. If you look at the twenty the last election, many people would say the biggest mistake Kamala Harris made was when she went on the view and said that she wasn't
doing any different frien than Joe Biden. I think the biggest mistake was that it would be I think four or five days from when she said that to when she did another interview. Donald Trump makes five mistakes an hour, but he's always on and so it just washes it out. And so when you allow that amount of time to go by, you're going to be defined by the other side. And so I think the lesson is one be yourself, but always be on. Go to as many places as possible.
After the election, I saw that sixty eight percent of the people who voted identifying some form or another as Christian. So I told my staff, I said, put us on the top twenty Christian podcast. So for the last four months, about once every other week, I'm going on a Christian podcast just to try and go to more spaces. You get it in places, and most people don't. I think more and more are though.
That's hilarus. That's like going the opposite of the birls. Y'all go to Andrew and Dio and Drogan.
I'm going to the Christians, right, But like, I'm a Christian and I don't want to be defined by what Republicans think of me, Like I don't wear it on my sleeve in my politics like they do. But I also don't want sixty eight percent of the electorate to think that I don't respect or understand who they are. And so to me, be yourself always beyond, because if
you're not always on, you're gonna get defined. And this happened to us in the last election on issues that we weren't talking about that much, but they would define and exaggerate, and then we found ourselves on defense because we were too scripted and we were too cautious.
But you also know, you know, Vice President of Kamala has. The reason she did that on the view is because nobody wanted to pis Biden off. Biden wanted his legacy to be intact. You could read the original Sin and see that he cares more about his legacy and his ego and how the Biden name.
Is perceived than anything.
So he put himself over the party and the future of America. So she didn't want to break away from that. I bet you she had stunts, marching orders, do not break away from Biden, don't make his legacy look crazy.
And this is a leadership test, right, Like you have to show like whether you're going to be your own person or not. And that's that's what people were looking for.
You came up during Obama's rise, right, I came in twenty twelve. So what do you what do you think the Democratic Party lost after Obama?
Exodent? I think we are perceived as protecting the status quo. And when we like here's a perfect example, we will say, you know, we need to protect democracy, and people are like, protect democracy. Democracy isn't working for me, Like, why would I want to protect a corrupt system when we probably should be approaching it as like we need to fix democracy. It's too hard for most people to vote in a democracy.
You have a legal system where the wealthiest can find their way out of it, while everyone else you know, is subjected, you know to it. Money buys you access. In this democracy, you can go to Trump's meme coin dinner or spend a million dollars and then get the bill you want passed or the pardon you need for your family members. So people don't look at democratsy something that needs to be protected. They look at it as
something that needs to be completely fixed. And I think we have been seen as defenders of the status quo and not willing to be bold enough to break and smash things to help regular people.
And that's what I'm saying. I really feel that the future of the Democratic Party, in order to be the future, you have to throw those old regimes under the bus. Thank you for your service, but that don't work anymore, especially after what just happened over the last four years.
Yeah, no message received. And if you don't get that message, I don't think your voters are going to keep you in right.
I had a couple more questions, Yeah, that did the Chinese spy scandal hurt your credibility? Are the Republicans just weaponized like a nothing burgus so to speak?
You know the fact that the FBI and the House Ethics Committee said it was bullshit, Like I I would hope that would be enough. But like in a disinformation society, like I recognize that it's everyone on the rights favorite meme my wife tells me all the time, you know what, the second they're not going after you, you're not affected. And so I wear it as a badge of honor that these guys would want to lie about me all the time, because I think it means that I'm landing
punches politically on them. That sting, and frankly, I think a lot of Republicans look at me as like, oh, that's a straight, white Christian male son of a cop, like everyone else like him looks like me, So when he comes at me, it's more betrayal to them. Like I've heard that from them on their side. That's that's why they take it so personally. So I'm not going away and they can say what they want and the
death threats will come. But if they think I'm going to drop my lawsuit from January sixth against the president, if I regret being an impeachment manager, or if I'm not going to like go out and work my ass off to help us win the midterms, like they're wrong, I'm not going away with I came from nothing. I was raised by a cop who did the right thing. Like to me, I'm playing with the House's money, so to speak, and so this is just a right or wrong mission for me.
You get a lot of pushback from your party because of you talk so real. You really don't give a fuck about what you say. You speak from the heart.
No, no, I don't think so. Actually, a lot of the newer members will come to me before they do, like bigger interviews can ask you how to be here. Yeah, And as I try and I try and be the mentor to newer, younger members that I didn't have when I came in, I will say the best mentor I had was Nancy Pelosi, not necessarily on messaging, but just on like wielding power. She put me on the Intelligence
Committee in my sophomore term. She put me at the seat next to her on the Leadership Committee as the chair of the steering and part I'll see on my third term. And so I learned like up front and center with her, you know, how to like work the caucus and wield power. I mean, because she knew how to flex. That woman knew how to flex. She's one of the greatest leaders I think we'll have had in our country in one hundred years, made a lot of money too. As trade we should not trade stocks period
that we should not trade stocks. But I try and mentor the younger members, and what I tell them is, I said, is give me your zero draft when you're asked a question, don't give me yours, like when you're doing an interview. Don't give your first draft or your second draft. Just give what's in here, because that's probably what got you here. In the second you start trying to, as I said, make it appropriate for everyone, then you
lose everyone. Yeah, so no, I haven't. If there is pushback, they're not saying it to my face.
You know. When it comes to social media, you know they are. They do try to kill your credibility all the time with the fang fang memes. So do you think people.
Will laugh at them? My best buddies will just send them to me, And I'm like, God, damn it.
What do you think you think people trust politicians who speak out against foreign interference when they themselves has been caught up in it, even if they were cleared, even though you were clear.
I hope they would see that, like the reason by the way, when this volunteer came to our campaign in Barack Obama's first term, so that's how long ago it was. And I see it as because the FBI said, we don't know who this person is, so we want you to help us understand it. And then the FBI said all I did was help. I see it as I have more credibility because when I had someone who we didn't understand who they were trying to help my campaign. I didn't say, hey, can you raise a lot of
money for me? Can I build you know, a real estate deal in your country's capital. Can you help get me votes for my election? No, I said, I'm going to work with law enforcement. When Donald Trump did the opposite, right when he had Russians come to him, he was like, Russia, if you're listening, still trying to do a Trump tower deal in Moscow. So I would say I actually did what you would hope any elected official would do. But I get it like this is, as I said in
the beginning, it's all existential. Now it's it's as Bill Clinton called it, the politics of personal destruction, Like they have to destroy me because I'm a threat, and look at look at what Jasmine's going through right, she's real she lands on them and so they they are all over her. And I've told her, I said, they're going to do this to you until you go away, and
you can't hide under the bed. And she's not hiding under the bed, and she's not going to she's not going away, but that that's what they want you to do. And they're they're very effective at finding the threats and our party and trying to make them go away. And as I said, I you can't intimidate me like I I live with, like the power going out when I was a kid and we all SCRAMed to figure out how we're going to turn the power back on, like
I've lived through the worst. Like some Chinese meme that you're gonna make about me, like that doesn't bother me.
My last question, is there anything Democrats can do to stop the GOP megabill.
Yes, continue to go to Republican districts and put pressure on I'm getting seven hundred to one thousand people in these districts when I go and do town halls, and that downward pressure that is we only need to flip three of them in the house, when if it comes back again, same thing in the Senate, and we have Senate seats that we did not think were in play that are going to be in play, not just North Carolina, but also Florida, Iowa. I mean, look at the Senator
of Iowa. Two weeks ago. You would not have said that Iowa was going to be a threat. And then the Senator of Iowa went out and said, well, who cares if we're cutting medicaid. We're all going to die anyway. So like going to those states, doing these town halls, bringing out not just Republicans but also independence, not just Democrats,
but Republicans and independence. That works, And it's also an organizing tool, a muscle for us, you know, to exercise, so that we're ready to flex it at the mid terms.
Nextime is your Democrats who support this bill be shamed.
No, Democrats, you shupport this bill?
Yeah?
Yeah, no, we do not support this bill.
Is this this is the same bility that Chuck Schumer said he wanted to support, right, No, no, the spending bill that was a spending bill.
Yeah, and that's going to come back up in September. And I hope we learned our lesson from what happened in March. We should not be helping these guys get well because, as I said, they're firing cancer doctors. That's what when you fund their government, you're funding the government that is firing cancer doctor.
Are they really cutting Medicaid? Yes, but they said they're not.
I mean they say a lot of shit that they're actually doing.
I mean we don't read the bills, don't.
Yeah, yeah, No, they're really cutting.
It's really in it. And they want to cut Medicaid.
Yes, it It will kick fourteen million people off Medican Wow. Fourteen million people. Wow.
Congressman Eric Swollwell, thank you so much for doing my pleasure this morning, and don't be a stranger.
I'll be back all right. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning. Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club