Breaking News from Pod Save America - Top Trump Critic Issues DIRE WARNING About America's Future

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

Congressman Eric Swalwell joins Tommy Vietor to discuss Donald Trump, ICE agents in LA, and the Iran-Israel War. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joining me in studio today is Congressman Eric Swalwell of California's 14th District. Great to see you. Yeah, thanks for having me back. Are you in town for the Antifa guerrilla campaign? We're launching tomorrow against ICE. That brings you here. That's right. Orientation, right?

Yeah, you start sp afternoon. Yeah, your stick, your night's sick, maybe? All in. Good. Good, good, good. Actually, tomorrow night I'm doing a town hall in Mission Viejo in the 40th congressional district. That's Young Kim's district. That's one of the closest congressional races.

in the country, if we're going to be in the majority next November, if Hakeem Jeffries is a speaker, we have to win there. And so she won't host a town hall, just like most of the Republicans. Yeah. So I've been on this crusade trying to do two a month in Republican districts. And it's not just that you go and put downward pressure on them, especially as the reconciliation bill awaits final passage in the House. It's an organizing tool. And it's also a recruiting tool because, you know, potential candidates, you know, come to these events. They see that there's, like, a support network around them. It helps the locals, like, collect information about, like, who wants to volunteer,

who wants to be involved. And we've been getting, actually, a lot of Republicans showing up to these events as well. That's great. I went to the one Ro Kana did, like, an hour from here a few months back. Are you guys still getting good attendance and energy? We're getting about 1,000 people each time that we do this. I went to Anna Paulina-Luna's district in Tampa, had about 1,000 people. I was in Folsom in Kevin Kiley's district up in the Sacramento suburbs.

Same thing. And we try and create like immediately a permissive environment for Republicans because I don't want people who are Republicans to feel like if they ask a question and say they're a Republican. Yeah, that they're going to get jeered. And so the first thing we do is we thank anyone who's there who's a Republican. And every time the response is the same. The crowd gets loud applause and thanks them. And then you start to see the permissive environment allows them to. and their questions say, I'm a Republican and I don't like this.

And so we learn a lot about what is drawing them out, what's causing them concerns. And that's what you'd imagine. It's threats to health care, social security. A lot of veterans who are getting fucked over. I mean, no president has fired more veterans than Donald Trump. Right. And a lot of these guys are showing up with their service hats on to like kind of like probably, like show that they served. And now their benefits are at risk.

That's great. I'm so glad you guys are doing that. I think it's really important. Also, I screwed something up on a recent mailbag episode that left the country, and you actually corrected me. I said that Democrats had a six-year term limit on committee chairs. Turns out that was Republicans. Huge error. I wish we did.

Yeah. So you be in favor of a reform like that? 100%. Something to get younger members into leadership positions? Yeah. And too many of them. We have so much talent in our Democratic caucus. But the way our rules are set up, I mean, it's very seniority bias.

So you'd have to be in the house for 10, 15, even 20 years before you would get a committee gavel. And so we've lost a lot of talent because of that. A lot of people have either left to the private sector or they've run for other offices because they don't see a pathway to leadership. And frankly, Paul Ryan, I'll never forget. He pulled me aside one time. He saw me at an airport. And he said, Eric, he said, you've been in Congress for like 10 years now.

And like committee leadership is still far out of reach. He said, if you guys don't fix that, you're going to lose your best talent. And he pointed out how they have that six-year term limit. And so you cycle in and cycle out a lot of different folks and you create, you know, a bench that is ready and can lead. And I think we should do the same. I wholeheartedly agree with you there. I want to get to some issues of the day. So Politico reported today that we're talking on Wednesday, June 18th, that a federal appeals court appears poised to allow Trump to continue

to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles. If that happens, how worried are you about Trump just like having troops in the streets of Los Angeles or other liberal cities in California or anywhere just in perpetuity? Yeah, that's the plan, right? And he's, I see it as it's kind of like a reverse uno of January 6, right? So January 6th, we needed the troops. And that would have meant the troops going in against his supporters who were violently attacking the Capitol.

And so he didn't call them the reverse. Uno here is that he wants to put the troops there to draw the foul so that his political opponents attack the troops and bring violence and then give him justification, you know, to assert more power. And so, of course, we have to keep fighting this in the courts. But I think we have to tell the story of, one, like the shitty conditions that he's having our troops, you know, live in. Like they're sleeping on the ground. Yeah, and they're sleeping in squalor. And it's not like Afghanistan or Iraq.

I mean, this is, you know, these are big American cities. but the cost as well, $134 million for this exercise in Los Angeles, $40 million for what he did at the Capitol last week. And then contrast that with that money could have gone to taking care of the troops in their health care, like veterans' health care, their veterans' injury claims that are not being paid out at the rate they need to be paid out. And of course, just like taking care of the people in our community who count on government. So I think the price tag is eye popping for a lot of people, and we have to keep, you know,

raising the alarm on that. Yeah, I agree. I mean, that could be a down payment on taking Greenland. That's right. Come on, let's get creative here. California is proposing a bill to ban face coverings

for officers during official duties unless they're SWAT or disaster response. DHS called the bill despicable. What's your take? It's weird to me to watch. I mean, I just didn't put myself in the shoes of anybody on the streets of Los Angeles. all of a sudden, you're a bunch of guys in plain clothes run up on you with masks on and then detain you and throw you in an unmarked van.

Like that feels like a kidnapping. It's un-American, frankly. If you're standing on the law and justice is on your side, you should have nothing to hide. And I say that as a former prosecutor, a son of a cop, and a brother to two police officers. And there's no other law enforcement agency in America that routinely is out in the streets with their face is covered. And so they should show their faces. But one thing that we can do is a caucus, and many of my Democratic colleagues have talked about this,

is when we're in the majority and we make reforms to the immigration system and we fund DHS, one of the first things we're going to demand is that they show their faces. It's also a public safety issue, especially for women. You have some unmasked guy coming up to you. You're going to run, go for the mace or the pepper spray. I mean, this is your worst night. And also, it's potentially could put the ice agent at risk if you're in an open carry state like

Texas and you go up like some, you know, 1800s bank robber to someone who's carrying it. It's just, it's not who we are. And it really, it offends a lot of people. I'm surprised how many people who don't follow politics really get uncomfortable when they see these images of massed agents. Yeah, it's very scary. We're all sitting here anxiously waiting to see whether President Trump is going to drag the United States into offensive military action against Iran. In the House, you have Thomas Massey, a Republican, Rokana, your colleague in the California delegation, who have put forward a war powers resolution that would prohibit the U.S. from entering into the war unless it's authorized by Congress. Do you support that effort? You think it's a good idea?

Yeah. It is our duty, you know, to declare war. And we need to know, you know, the time, like the length of time as to what the commitment would be. We need to know the number of troops, you know, that would be committed and the terrain covered. So that's the three T's. Maybe a goal. Yeah. Yeah, maybe like what's the overall. End goal. Mission here. You know, there's no question that, you know, Iran is a malicious actor that funds terrorism all over the globe. And, you know, in their, you know, founding documents, it is a death to America, death to Israel agenda. And we rightfully, I think, are defending Israel's skies, but for us to go in militarily against Iran, I mean, we know how this sounds, like, tell me,

tell me the success story in our lifetime where we went into the Middle East. Yeah. And, you know, a positive outcome was achieved. And I also look at these bases that are at risk right now because of what's happening over there. And it just reminds me, like, why do we still have that kind of presence in the Middle East? Forty thousand troops in the Middle East. Yeah. And the guy who said, no more wars, or the guy who also said on day one, these wars are going away, he's actually adding wars, you know, to the globe, which is failed leadership on his point. Completely failed to end the war in Ukraine. In fact, many would argue it's worse. Things in Gaza are worse, and now we're adding a war with Iran. And why wouldn't China right now is they see us, you know,

distracted and unable to bring peace where we promised peace? Why wouldn't they move on Taiwan at this point? I mean, if I was China, you know, I would see the United States and its influence quite weakened, especially, you know, if Netanyahu is able to launch these strikes while we were negotiating with Iran, making a president who said he's going to end wars look weak. Like, why wouldn't China want to do that if the U.S. president looks weak? Yeah. I mean, every president, including Barack Obama, who I worked for, has said they wanted to pivot from the Middle East to Asia. And yet once again, Trump is taking.

taken aircraft carriers out of the Pacific, sending them the Middle East, you know, drawn back in again. I want to play a clip for you. This is a guy named Dave Smith. He's a comedian, a podcaster, and a frequent guest on Joe Rogan show. Another kind of like, manosphere is the word that's become cornered around, but whatever. I want you to hear, in the audience to hear how he is talking about the war with Iran and Trump's involvement. Donald Trump looks, and man, I supported him this last year. I apologize for doing so.

It was a bad calculation. At the time, it seemed like the right one. But he should be impeached and removed for this one. And not on some ridiculous Nancy Pelosi. Of course, the Congress will never do it because they're all a bunch of corrupt acts. This is the one thing they support. This is like, though, yeah. Donald Trump should be impeached and removed for this.

All of his supporters should turn on him. It's the absolute betrayal of everything that he ran and campaigned on and everything that he stood for. Okay, so he lost me on the all of Congress's corrupt. tax thing, but I'm wondering, like, the sentiment is good, right? It's great to hear these guys kind of seeing the reality of who Trump is and what his policies are. How do you think we speak to people like Dave Smith and show him that, like, we as a party are listening and we want to get back to being the anti-war, anti-forever war party? That's right. And this is not what you were promised, right? That you were promised that we would reduce the amount of conflicts

in the world, not increase them. And you were right if that's why you supported him. And he's wrong for betraying you. I mean, that's how I see it. Yes, it's the U.S. foreign policy goal across administrations that we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. I thought we were best off when President Obama negotiated an agreement and we had the best eyes and insight into Iran as to whether they did. And we saw them going the other direction than where they are today. And so that, to me, is a case for why our engagement in the world matters. And when we can bring people to the table, especially our enemies, and negotiate to get that result, like, that matters. That's American leadership. I also see the same opportunity with tariffs, right?

Like, you were promised your costs would be reduced on day one. And he's 0 for 150 now, right? And not only is he oh for 150, he just made a fucking phone that is made in China. Like, it's not even, it's shamelessly like made in China. It's shocking. Yeah. Made in China, Trump. phone that he's trying to sell so he can get rich while you go out and purchase what is going into your Walmart shopping cart, which is four out of five of the items made in China, you're going to be paying for those tariffs. So there is a real opportunity. I agree. I totally agree. That Thomas Massey Roe-Connor resolution we were talking about, it's a privilege resolution.

I barely know what that means. Does that mean we're going to get a vote on it? So what will happen? So if they force their privilege to have it brought up immediately, a Republican will move to table. And so the first vote will be on the move to table. So a move to table that would mean we'd essentially never have the vote on it. And so we have to defeat the move to table. But frankly, I think there are enough Democrats and no more war Republicans who would at least say, like, let's have the conversation about this. That's the job.

I mean, we have as a Congress over the last, I'd say, 15 years really reduced ourselves. as far as like that constitutional power that we have is the preeminent branch of government that can declare war because we've allowed the executive branch, frankly, in both administrations, to take actions that really belong to Congress. And oftentimes it's because Congress just doesn't want to have to make the decision. And so that's exactly right. That's right. Hand up on the Obama administration, not making that problem better. That is for sure. You remember the Homeland Security Committee, are you guys being briefed on any increased threats from Iran or Iranian proxies because of this war? Is there concern there?

We've been told that we're going to get that on Monday when we're back. Obviously, you know, being, and again, Donald Trump sends out one tweet. We have nothing to do with this. And then is saying, essentially, everyone evacuate Tehran. Also, I could smoke the Supreme Leader if I wanted to. Yeah, I know where he's staying right now. So that certainly brings more threats to the homeland. And I look forward to that brief, you know, to see what we can do.

To reduce that. Again, we were told fewer wars, safer on day one, and people have never been more anxious about their security here or are friends even in Israel. I mean, they are now incredibly anxious about. Ballistic missiles raining down on television. This is crazy stuff. Speaking of the security situation, over the weekend, there was this horrific, politically motivated assassination in Minnesota. We have since learned that this killer had a list of Democrats in his car, including some of your colleagues. I was talking to Greg Lansman, another Democrat in Congress yesterday. He's a friend of mine. It just sounds just beyond terrifying.

Have you guys gotten a briefing on what this guy's deal was or other, you know, the general kind of threat vector? Say that the right word? I don't know. I sound like a dork. For members of Congress generally? We had a security briefing yesterday. I learned, actually, it was just today that I was in the writings,

which was separate, I think, from like, the list, but I had been in like some of his writings. We are very, I would say, on edge as a caucus right now. I bet. And in the call that we had yesterday, I mean, there was just a lot of emotion. First, about not feeling like we have enough resources. And personally, I feel like it's inevitable that we're going to lose a member or someone in a member's family because of the high volume of threats and the low amount of resources

devoted to this. And that is entirely at the foot of the Republican Party. They will not fund the security that we need to protect members of Congress. And they won't even fund the judges. And in fact, the judges who are also receiving an incredible number of threats, they came to the Judiciary Committee, which I'm also on, and asked for an increase in funding. And Jim Jordan and Chip Roy both publicly said, like, that's not going to happen. And Chip Roy went as a far as to say, like, they are bringing this on themselves with some of their rulings. So it's almost like blaming the victim. And so the anxiety among my colleagues is that, like, the threats, what they do is we all have

to spend out of our own campaign accounts to protect ourselves and our staff and our family because we don't have the resources from Congress. And the aim is to make you do fewer town halls so you're not as representative to your constituents, spend more money out of your campaign so you're more vulnerable. you know, in your own re-election. And then you have these assholes, you know, on the right, like Mike Lee, who take a tragedy like this and blame the Democrats. Yeah, he mocks it and suggests that it was leftists who did it.

And it's very frustrating right now. Greg told me he's sitting in his house, terrified, you know, waiting for them to catch this Minnesota killer who had his name on a list. and he could not get out of his head the image of that man in that terrifying mask. And the reason he had seen that image is because someone sent Greg fucking Mike Lee's tweet. You know what I mean? Like that guy literally was terrifying someone who thought he might be a victim in real time. Just awful.

Just to dig into this a little bit. Can you help listeners understand like what kind of resources are currently available to members of Congress when it comes to security and what things you might like to add? Yeah, so almost zero. I mean, when you're on the campus of the Capitol, thank God the Capitol police are there and they're patrolling the Capitol. But unless you're in leadership, there's five members of Congress in the House who are in leadership, three on the Republican side because they have the Speaker and then the Democratic leader and the Democratic whip, they get around the clock like personal details.

Nobody else gets anything like that at all. And so you're really on your own. And so if you're personally wealthy, you can, I guess, pay for, like, personal security. You remember Ben Romney talking about, like, how unbelievably expensive it was for him to protect himself and his family as part of why you retired? Yeah. If you have $80,000 left in student loan debt like me, like it's really hard to, like, you know, dip into your personal funds for security. And so you, you know, try and manage it with your campaign. And so there's not many resources right now at all.

And that's a large part of the frustration. But there's also a sense that the antidote to this is. is a bipartisan condemnation of violence. And we often feel like it's a one-sided condemnation, and we don't get it from the other side. And Mike Johnson, by the way, what did he say last week about Gavin Newsom? That he should be tarred and feathered, right?

Like just one of the most horrible, cruel acts from like a horrible era of American history. And so that's the direction these guys are going. And it's another reason for us to be in the majority. and Hakeem Jeffries has said this to many members who face a lot of threats that, like, when we're in the majority, like, we will get this right. But I'm afraid before we get there, we're probably going to see, you know, an increase in threats and potentially like a loss of a member. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure Speaker Johnson thought he was being funny, but tar and feathering someone is like the first example I'd think of when it comes to, like, vigilante justice, right?

Like things we shouldn't be for. in this country. But I agree with you. I mean, part of the problem with this is we understandably, I think, default to a conversation about security and, like, you know, protecting members and elected officials generally. We should, of course, do that. But there isn't this conversation about just like ratcheting down the tension. And look, more security comes with a cost, right? I mean, I saw this when I was on the Obama campaign and we went from no secret service to secret service. Like, you're suddenly held at more of a distance from the people you represent. Like, they can't get close to you.

They can't talk to you. There's no, like, serendipity on a rope line anymore or something. You know, and it's, it's harmful, I think, to, like, the political process generally. And you can see the direct line of, like, when the threats started to go up. And it was 2015 when a certain person entered the presidential race. Ted Cruz? And, yeah, that's right. And created this environment where people felt like, well, if he,

can tell security to go rough up that journalist or if he can say a police officer should bang a suspect's head, you know, on the doors, he's put him in the car. If he can suggest, you know, the press or the enemy of the people, then it's okay for me to talk that way. Right. Pardon January 6th, guys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, yeah, it's not just, it's not just who he is locking up right now in the way he's doing it, you know, with his iced agents. It's who he put into our community. And also the signal it sends to those folks that why wouldn't I go out and commit more violence in his name? He's got my back.

Right. Right. He'll pay my lawyer fees. He'll pardon me. I'll do whatever it takes. About the kind of congressional business that's happening. So the House passed Trump's tax cut for billionaires. By one vote.

Sounds like the Senate's making a bunch of changes to it. There are reportedly changes to the state and local tax deductions that help get a lot of moderate Republicans on board. There's changes to the deductions businesses can make that I think will make the bill way more expensive and they're not paying for that necessarily. It makes the child tax credit less generous. There are deeper cuts to Medicaid. I think the debt ceiling increases bigger. Given what you're seeing, do you think there's a chance that Speaker Johnson won't be able to get that revised version through the House? I do. And by the way, your staff generously offered me

a LaCroix when I came in to pay for this bill. One of the deductions they took away from small and medium-sized businesses is to provide, like, food and snacks to your employees. Yeah. So that was something you could deduct, I think, up to like 50%. And they got rid of that. Great. So that, you know, the billionaires can have a bigger tax cut. So I guess next time I'll have to come in with my own water.

Yeah, I'm going to get you a water bottle. But if you believe the salt crew, and I know your colleagues, because I listen to the show, they eye roll you when you really want to go into the salt. Weeds here. But if you listen to the salt New York Republicans, and I talk to them, they say that if they touch, if the Senate touches salt, they're gone. So that's about four votes. And again, they passed it by one last time. So they can't lose those four New Yorkers. Now, do the moderates always get rolled? Yes. But those New Yorkers just watched in the last election, three of the Republican colleagues get beaten. So they know that we are going for more seats in New York. And we can't

be in the majority unless we win more seats in New York. And the same thing in California, who also has the salt issue is a big issue. And there's still Republicans like Young Kim, who will be thinking about that. So if the salt folks stick together, they can kill the bill. The other piece of this that I really worry about is the AI piece, right? A 10-year moratorium on any AI regulation was put into the legislation. And Marjorie Taylor-Green told us like, oh, shit, I didn't read the bill. I guess that's in there. And she didn't. And she didn't She doesn't really care about AI and probably doesn't understand AI, but she does understand states' rights, and she understands the slippery slope of getting rid of states' rights and what it would

mean for issues that she cares about if they went in that direction. And so you have Marjorie Taylor Green and others like Scott Perry and I think Mike Flood, who have said, also, we didn't read the bill, we never would have supported this. So when you take those three, and there's a few others like them and the salt folks, if they touch salt and they don't make the AI fix, we have a real chance at killing the bill. I wish I could tell you that we could kill the bill because the Medicaid cuts are too much. Right. And that like David Valadeo, who is in the Central Valley and 60% of his constituents are on Medicaid, that that's too much. I hope that weighs on members like David. But right now I think it's going to be those two groups

who will give us the best shot that take it down. Hey, sweetie, your mother showed me this Carvana thing offer selling the car. I'm going to give it a try. Wish me luck. Me again. I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer. Unbelievable. Okay, I accepted the offer. They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair. It's done. The car is gone. I'm holding a check. Anyway, Carvana. Give it a whirl. Love you. So good, you'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on... Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. Who was behind this moratorium on state-based AI regulation. I assume this is just like a go-fuck-yourself California provision on some level.

Yes. History has shown whether it's on privacy and data, which was passed in California in 2019, and the rest of the country follows that, and there's no federal privacy and data law. It's just that California did it. Or even food. In California, last year, banned the worst five chemicals in our food that goes into place next year.

Food manufacturers aren't going to have a California plant, and then, like, a plant for the other 49 states. They're just going to go to a California. That's exactly right. So there is a fear that we would not address AI federally and that California had already actually last year started to take it on its own and that would become the standard. And so, yes, I think it is tech billionaires who don't want any regulations, which to me is crazy. I mean, AI is going to change the workplace. It's going to change the way our kids learn. Hopefully it creates more jobs and it displaces. But if you have no contours on it as it relates to data, security, privacy, and of course, licensing of content, and whether, like, you can give a trademark or a copyright to a non-human and what that means, you know, for the entertainment industry, etc. If you have no contours on it, it's going to be wildly out of control. And so we can't let that happen. Elon Musk, who may or may not have been...

Who's fighting with his own AI every day. He describes the coming wave of AI as, imagine you're walking around on a beach. and you're picking up trash and there's a 1,000 foot tsunami about to land on you. It's like nothing you do matters. It's like this guy was the top advisor to Donald Trump like six minutes ago. And yet there's this insane refusal to do anything to regulate AI in this bill. I mean, I guess it's just because they're captured by corporate interests. But it just seems like they have all the minds there who could warn them about what's coming and

get there doing nothing. And it's a 10,000 foot wave if we do nothing. That's the true. Yeah. Final question for you. So a lot of Democrats feel a little demoralized these days. I think it knows, you know, King's protests were an incredibly powerful shot in the arm for anybody who went. But now we're back to like the war, a new war in Iran, ice raids, like God knows what else.

What's your advice to Democrats listening who are trying to figure out how to do something to make the country a better place, even though we're a long ways away from the next federal election? Small victories will bring big victories. We saw that in Wisconsin. and I know vote save America, like engaged there. And a lot of us, like through contributions or text messaging, phone banking, engaged there. I certainly did. And we beat Elon's $30 million.

And hopefully that's a deterrent to Elon spending a lot of money in the midterms. New Jersey, Virginia, at the end of this year, if we can win there with Abigail Spanberger and Mikey Sherrill, get two Democratic governors, that will make sure that we have equal access to the ballot box in the midterms because we need to pick up seats in both Virginia and New Jersey. for the midterms. But it also gives us momentum, right? I think sports is just like politics. Like momentum begets momentum. I totally agree. So we end the year with wins in Wisconsin, Virginia, New Jersey. We start to get our confidence back. We are able to recruit good candidates because these wins help high-calibre candidates make the decision as to whether they want to run or not. Right. So in all

of these congressional districts that are toss-ups and all the Senate seats that are toss-ups, if you're seeing us collect wins at the ballot box and you're seeing people go to the town squares, like we saw over the weekend at the No Kings Rally's, you're going to feel like if I get in this, there's a chance for me to win. And the inverse of that is Brian Kemp, right? High caliber candidates on the Republican side, like Brian Kemp, who's going to run against John Ossoff in Georgia, he's going to take a walk this election. And so their best are going to sit it out and our best are going to want to get in. And so just keep building momentum. And then I would just say to your viewers, what I'm doing in my own household, whatever you did in the

last election cycle, go one rung higher. So just think about what you did and go one rung higher. So if you've never gone to a protest, go to your first protest. If you've never volunteered on a congressional campaign, volunteer in your first congressional campaign. If you've never gone to city hall to speak on a council agenda, go and speak and just find your own agency and fulfillment in doing that. We'll probably have to go a lot of rungs higher by the time we get to the midterms. But for now, just go one rung higher and see how that makes you feel. That's great advice. Congressman Swalwell, Thank you for coming in. My pleasure.

Thanks, Tommy. Thanks for watching this video. If you want more like it, please subscribe to Positive America on YouTube. Right now, people use YouTube as a search engine for political news, and what they often find is right-wing content because those accounts are just much bigger and better established than any of the progressive. So when you subscribe to us, you help us get good information into the algorithm to people who just want to better understand what's happening in politics and the world.

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