The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Eric Swalwell On Switching Parties, Biden's Decline, The Future Of The Party + More

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

Today on The Breakfast Club, Eric Swalwell On Switching Parties, Biden's Decline, The Future Of The Party. Listen For More!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart podcast. Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning, everybody. It's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne the guy. We are The Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building. Yes, indeed.

Congressman Eric Swalwell. Welcome. Hey, thanks for having me on. How are you feeling today? I'm good. I'm good. You got such an interesting story because you're a Democrat. Yeah. Out of California. Yeah. But you were raised. Your parents were such an interesting story because you're a Democrat out of California,

but your parents were Republican. So you were a Republican at one point. What made you switch sides, so to speak? 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 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 in, it was called Dublin, and everyone around us called it Scrublin, I started to realize that, and I think very much resented

that it felt like there were like two paths of 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 was like a free for all approach bigger. And Republicans, I saw, 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 D.C., rehab the injury, intern for your member of Congress, and see if you liked it. And I happened to be there summer of 2001. I loved it.

And I was working for a very moderate Democratic member of Congress, her name was Ellen Tauscher. 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 11, being there on September 11, that I didn't want to go back to sports anymore. It's kind of seemed trivial compared to like what was going on in the world.

Um, but yeah, my parents are still Republicans today. I have three little brothers. I, 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 Pents. 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 is gonna 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, seeing a lot of people that I grew up with go off to Iraq 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 working class home and the towns that were around us were very wealthy. And so because I played competitive soccer, I got to see, and our town didn't have a competitive soccer team, so I played in the wealthier towns teams. And I got to see what the richer kids thought

of the poorer kids by playing on their teams. And honestly, it was a little bit of just resending that they were able to take shortcuts and people who worked hard, like 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 solutions 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 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 the most existential threat to our country. We're gonna lose our country if George Bush is reelected. And then Obama comes in, and you get this birtherism bullshit. And then when the real threat came in Donald Trump,

I think most Americans were like, okay, that's just what you guys say. That's just what you say. So when the real threat was there, Trump, I think most Americans were like, okay, that's just what you guys say. That's just what you say, so when the real threat was there, we probably didn't appreciate it. I wanna ask, what do you think the biggest thing the Democrats got wrong in the last election? Immigration and public safety.

Break it down. So, 40% of my constituents were born outside the United States. It'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 the wealth they can create in their community, right? So when you have legal immigration channels, there's no end. But the American people, they're not gonna let you solve the workforce crisis in agriculture, in hospitality, in restaurants, food and beverage.

They're not gonna let you attack that until they see security at the border. And the perception that the border was out of control and the perception that the border 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 gonna make asylum claims,

we're gonna put resources there to adjudicate those claims as quickly as possible. But if it's seen 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 gonna 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 much identified as like a defund the police party. And I think you can have both. Because-

Okay, I was gonna let you finish, but I wanna ask you something about that. People want safety in their community. They also don't want like the wrong person going to jail or people going to jail for petty shit. But they want to feel safe in the community. They also don't want the wrong person going to jail or people going to jail for petty shit, but they wanna feel safe in the community. And we weren't perceived as a party that was gonna keep you safe. I was gonna 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 cared for more than the 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 time, it's usually community services have to spend a week 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 a homicide or an attempted homicide, she would not charge the gun crime

that could add 25 years to life and put away the worst in the community. And 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 62% in Oakland and Berkeley. And so that, I think, shows that even liberal communities want public safety. They want compassion. They don't believe that 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 gonna have great schools, and your home values, if you're able to buy a house, is just gonna tank. And so you have to focus on public safety. You mentioned two things. You mentioned border and you mentioned law and order, which I agree with,

because I always say I don't care what your race is, what your sexuality is, what your gender is. If you're in America 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 and to the New York cities and to the Morpheus Vineyards. 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, then 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 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 II, whenever there's a Democrat in the White House, the economy does better. Why aren't you able to 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 just to put your family in, yeah. I can see why that creates resentment. It was a cheap shot what those governors did, but I mean, 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 401ks have become 201ks. The Trump tariffs are jacking up the cost 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 under 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. The people I'm talking about ain't got no stocks. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So how can you lie to people about what they're actually putting in their pocket? Yeah, 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. And so home ownership should be within reach for anyone who works full time. And so I have legislation that gives $25,000 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. Small and medium-sized businesses

are competing against giants, and the giants have in-house legal teams that can cut through all the regulations. They can hire a lobbyist to find a workaround. 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 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 and small businesses, that's literally like a middle-class thing. Like, you know how hard it is to be able to afford a home? Like some people I'm talking about are just folks who wanna find an apartment that's not $3,000 a month. You know, they just want to have a couple of meals on their table, you know, throughout the day for their kids. Like this, that, like we never speak to that. It feels like we always talk to the middle class and above that.

But we never talk to who's Lord in the middle class. But 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 13 different houses. I went to 11 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 gonna 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 as 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 get in the way of builders and developers bringing more inventory 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 a piece of America, that fulfills the American promise that if you work hard, 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.

Believe it or not, I'm still paying off student loan debt. I've got about $80,000 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. But how do we get those poor and disenfranchised people to even get to a mindset of aspirational? Because right now they're just trying to survive. Yeah, 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 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 people are able to do it. But if you help them out with their first down payment and their taxes is still high and their state taxes are still high

and then the egg prices are 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, their income is not in wage and salary, and their taxes are much lower because it's in either stocks or funds or investments. They know how to play the game.

Yeah, and so you have unfairly set up the equation where wage workers are actually gonna proportionally pay more of what they make, and that's wrong. And I would flip that. I wanna ask you, is the Republican Party a bigger threat to democracy than foreign adversaries right now? Yes. Why do you say that?

The accomplices in the Republican Party to Donald Trump, because they are so afraid of this guy. And it is like a cult. Like they are terrified. 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 hear this in the, so there's a couple places I go where I get the real from these guys where 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 they're in shape at all. Go ahead. We would that's right. They should probably spend more time there but Only members are allowed so you can have 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 what's really going on at 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 an, I'm not going to enjoy going to church. We're not going to be welcome at the country club. We're going to get all these death threats. So they look at like Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney and they're like, that is hell. Why would I want that? Sad but true. To me, it's like find another job, right? Like there's a lot of other jobs.

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 and 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 what are you talking about and then it occurred to me oh like we're in the bathroom mm-hmm 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 on the floor he's gonna 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 broing 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 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 accomplices to donald trump What isn't that all y'all know? I don't think so. I hope not. I just finished reading the original sin So when I hear you talk i'm like, well, what was the democrats excuse when they chose to be accomplices in the cover-up of? Biden's physical and mental decline? It's the same thing. Y'all did the same.

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. I don't believe that. I mean, I didn't spend much time with President Biden behind the scenes. I didn't spend no time with him at all.

And you saw. We all saw. We all saw. You know what I mean? You had your two all. And you saw. We all saw. We all saw. We all saw. You had your two eyes. I got it. I got it. But the difference I would argue is that

what Donald Trump is doing right now, to our democracy, 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, and knew that he should have been a transitional president, and didn't push for him to say, hey, Mr. Biden, good job, you won 2020,

but we need something to do for 2024. I don't know if you remember, I was the pass the 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, pass 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 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 67. Is it age or cognitive decline though? Because I mean, it's perception though. It's perception. Donald Trump's only a few years younger than Biden. Or somebody like Bernie right now.

And he's crazy. He's fucking crazy. Like listen to the guy. He spoke to the West Point cadets the other day and he was talking about trophy wives, right? And everyone there's like, wait, this is the guy that's sending us off, you know, into battle. No, he's losing it too. What about Bernie Thin? 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 80s.

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, I believe what I The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the meat eater podcast network hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West

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But we can't even have free and fair elections in 2028 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. 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, it looks like he looks out for his

own. Yeah. The Democrats don't 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 would pardon his son, wouldn't pardon his best friend. Would Donald Trump pardon anybody that rides for him? He'd definitely pardon a lot of his best friends.

He wouldn't pardon Marilyn. 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, and the Senate, and not a mom in America would say that her kid was safer at school. Right? So I have three little kids, my two oldest, they do mass shooter drills.

They're eight and they're six. Mine do as well. 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, and Republicans by the way, 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 80% 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 go after 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 were going to go my way, and he's upset that some of them aren't. I mean, he's saying out loud that he has corrupted the court.

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 student loan debt. But I do see the opportunity for us

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 filibuster. I want to ask you this about Donald Trump. Why do a lot of Democrats still talk like Donald Trump is campaigning? When I hear y'all speak, it's like everything is anti-Trump, anti-Trump, anti-Trump, which I understand because he is doing a lot of things that I would consider corrupt and unconstitutional, but he's in the White House

All right. Yeah, like you're not running against him anymore. You still talk like you're campaigning against him Like you're trying to convince America. He's bad. He's bad. He's back. He's in the White House. He's the president There has to be another strategy Well, the strategy should be to tie him to the Republican Accomplices, 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 to happen.

You can vote for the Republicans who have taken away your access to healthcare. You can vote for the Republicans who have enabled the doctors who do cancer research at the NIH 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 accountable and you can vote them out. So what about when you see people like Elon Musk

speaking out against the GOP's mega bill saying that it's gonna add money to the deficit? Even there's a lot of people- I respect that. Yeah, and 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 gonna happen is people are just gonna 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 gonna look like the party of the future and say, you know what? We're gonna 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 gonna be a shit show for them to sort out who their nominee is in 2028. Because you have the question of whether Trump

would run again, whether it would be a son. We shouldn'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. And tying Trump's actions to those who are voting on all of this in the midterms, by the way, it doesn't matter. So the midterms is my focus in tying 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, independents, 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 the Wall Street Journal yesterday and they asked the question about David Hogg. We had David Hogg a couple weeks ago. The question was is David Hogg Democrats worst 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 tactics? I 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.

Mm-hmm. 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 gonna take Democrats, when you talk about the future of the Democratic Party, the future of the Democratic Party is going to be, it's gonna 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 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 gonna 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 Hakeem Jeffries, right? Because he's gotta make the case that we're winning the house. He's terrible. But he's the leader of the party.

My position only. Yeah, but if we win, he's the speaker, right? So he's gotta make the case in the fall that this is the agenda, these are the seats, win there, and now we have the majority in the house. The reason I don't trust guys like Hakeem is because he's so willing to still bend a knee to the old regime. He's not gonna ever speak out against Chuck Schumer. He's never gonna do that. But I can. But you're not the leader.

Yeah. I want the leader. I want Hakeem Jeffries to speak out against Chuck Schumer. When Chuck Schumer says, hey we got to support this bill that Donald Trump is doing, you got to say no. We got to 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 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 ever trust the Democratic Party after they lied to us so long about President Biden? And I'm big on this because I just read the original sentence. I'm just like, I don't see, I think that Democrats have tried every strategy except for two things, honesty and courage.

Yeah. Well, there's a lot of people who are courageous right now in the Democratic party. Our bread and butter issue, our dance 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 tried to take it away. That's how we won the House in 2018. And now this reconciliation bill is going to take 14 million people off their healthcare. We're not only going to protect healthcare, because I think protecting healthcare 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's like, that's why you should trust us because 40% 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 healthcare 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 facts and figures, but Republicans talk to people's gut, their emotion. When will y'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 34-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 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 my colleagues Liberated can it produce some cringe moments? Yes, but the other part of this is to always be on Like always be on and I'll give you an example If you look at the 20 the last election many people would say the biggest mistake Kamala Harris made was when she went on the view and said That she wouldn't do anything different 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 68% of the people who voted identify in some form or another as Christian. So I told my staff, I said, put us on the top 20 Christian podcasts. 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 hilarious though. That's like going the opposite of the Burles. You're like,

y'all go to Andrew and Theo and Rogan. I'm going to the Christian side. 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 68% of the electorate to think that I don't respect or understand who they are. And so to me, be yourself, always be on.

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 Kamala Harris, the reason she did that on The View

is because nobody wanted to piss 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 staunch 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 what people were looking for. You came up during Obama's rise, right? I came in in 2012. So what do you think the Democratic Party lost

after Obama exited? I think we are perceived as protecting the status quo. Definitely. And here's a perfect example. We will say, 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 of a legal system where the wealthiest can find their way out of it while everyone else, you know, is while everyone else is subjected to it. Money buys you access in this democracy. You can go to Trump's meme coin dinner, 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 democracy as something that needs to be protected. They look at it as 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, message received.

And if you don't get that message, I don't think your voters are going to keep you in. I had a couple more questions. Did the Chinese spy scandal hurt your credibility? Are the Republicans just weaponized like a nothing burger, so to speak? The fact that the FBI and the House Ethics Committee said it was bullshit. I would hope that would be enough, but in a disinformation society,

I recognize that it's everyone on the right's 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 is 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 no from them on their side that that's that's why they take it so personally so I'm'm not going away and they can say what they want and the death threats will come, but if they think I'm gonna drop my lawsuit from January 6th against the president, or if I regret being an impeachment manager, or if I'm not gonna go out and work my ass off to help us win the midterms, they're wrong.

I'm not going away. 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 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. And ask you how to be honest? Yeah, 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 Policy on my third term. And so I learned like upfront and center with her,

you know, how to like work the caucus and wield power. I mean, cause 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 a hundred years made a lot of money to incite trading we should not trade stocks period we should not trade stocks um but I try and mentor the younger members and what I tell them as I said is give me your zero draft when you're asked a question said is give me your zero draft When you're asked a question, don't give me your first 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 and the second you start trying to As I said make it appropriate for everyone, but 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, right? So do you think people-

I laugh at them. My best buddies will just send them to me. And I'm like, God damn it. But you think people trust politicians who speak out against foreign interference when they themselves have been caught up in it even if they were cleared? Even though you were cleared? I hope they would see that like the reason, by the way, 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 are all over her.

And I've told her, I said, they're gonna 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 away. But that's what they want you to do. And they're very effective at finding the threats in our party and trying to make them go away.

And as I said, you can't intimidate me. I've lived with the power going out when I was a kid and we all scrambled to figure out how we're gonna turn the power back on. I've lived through the worst. Some Chinese meme that you're gonna make about me, that doesn't bother me. My last question, is there anything Democrats can do

to stop the GOP mega bill? Yes, continue to go to Republican districts and put pressure on them. I'm getting 700 to 1,000 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 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 independents, not just Democrats, but Republicans and independents,

that works. And it's also an organizing tool, a muscle for us, to exercise so that we're ready to flex it at the midterms next November. And should Democrats who support this bill be shamed? No Democrats should support this bill. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, do not support this bill be shamed? No Democrats who support this bill. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, do not support this bill.

Is this, this is the same bill that Chuck Schumer said he wanted to support, right? No, no, no. That was a spending bill. That was a spending bill, yeah. And that's gonna come back up in September. I hope we learned our lesson from what happened in March. Gotcha. That 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 government you're funding the government that is firing cancer are they really cutting Medicaid yes they said they're not so I mean they say a lot of shit that they're actually doing yeah yeah no they're really cutting it's really in it they want to cut Medicaid yes it will it will kick 14 million people off Medicaid Wow 14 million people Wow Congressman Eric Swalwell thank you so much for joining us this morning. Yeah, my pleasure. And don't be a stranger. I'll be back. All right, it's

The Breakfast Club. Good morning.