Today on The Breakfast Club, Eric Swalwell On Switching Parties, Biden's Decline, The Future Of The Party. Listen For More!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wake that ass up in the morning. Breakfast Club Morning.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
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.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome, Hey, thanks for having me on. How I'm good,
I'm good.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
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?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
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
(00:48):
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
(01:09):
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
(01:30):
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
(01:51):
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
(02:11):
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
(02:34):
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.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Was it a particular moment or situation that made you
be like, I don't lean towards conservative anymore.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
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.
(03:13):
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
(03:34):
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
(03:56):
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.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
You think we'll ever get back to centrist politics ever again?
I hope.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
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
(04:30):
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
(04:52):
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.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I want to ask, what do you think the biggest
thing the Democrats got wrong.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
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
(05:29):
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,
(05:52):
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
(06:14):
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.
(06:35):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Have both because again I'll let you finish, but I
want to ask you something about that.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
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.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
I was going to ask you.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
So.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
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.
(07:28):
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.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
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
(08:02):
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.
(08:25):
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
(08:48):
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
(09:09):
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.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
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
(09:37):
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
(09:57):
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
(10:19):
in the White House, the economy does better. Why don't
you lead what a message that?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
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
(10:45):
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
(11:07):
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?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yeah, yeah, So how can you lie to people about
what they're actually putting in their pocket?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
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
(11:41):
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
(12:02):
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
(12:25):
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.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
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.
(13:05):
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.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
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
(13:34):
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
(13:57):
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
(14:19):
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
(14:43):
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.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
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.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
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.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
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.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
If that people are able to do it.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
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.
(16:15):
And I would I would flip that.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
I want to ask you, is the Republican Party a
bigger threat to democracy than foreign adversaries?
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Right now? Yes?
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Why is it?
Speaker 1 (16:25):
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
(16:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
They don't look like da shape at all, but go ahead.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
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
(17:31):
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
(17:54):
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
(18:15):
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,
(18:38):
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,
(19:00):
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
(19:21):
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
(19:41):
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
(20:03):
they're acting on camera is to completely enable and be accomplish.
As to Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Isn't that all of y'allo?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
I hope not.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
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.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
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.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I didn't spend no time with him at all.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
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.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
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.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
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,
(21:35):
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
(21:57):
make the cutoff sixty seven.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Age of cognitive decline though, because I mean, Joe, I
mean it's perception.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Though, it's perception.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Donal Trump's only a few years, a few years younger
than by somebody like Bernie any right.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
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
(22:30):
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
(22:52):
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.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
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.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, the Democrats don't look look like they look out
for their own.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
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.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
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
(23:58):
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
(24:23):
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
(24:44):
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
(25:06):
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,
(25:28):
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.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
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.
(25:58):
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.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
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
(26:29):
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,
(26:52):
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.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
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
(27:27):
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.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
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
(27:59):
nominee is twenty eight because you have the question of
whether Trump would run again, whether it would be a
se I can't.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Even be discussing it.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
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.
(28:26):
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.
(28:47):
We need just three seats and we can cut our
time in hell in half by winning the midterms.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
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.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
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
(29:24):
times are revealing who should lead and who should leave.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
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.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
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
(30:10):
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,
(30:31):
and now we have the majority of the House.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
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.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
But I can.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
But you're not the leader.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
I want the leader.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
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.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
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
(31:22):
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.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
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.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
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
(32:04):
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.
(32:24):
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.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
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?
Speaker 1 (32:57):
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
(33:20):
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,
(33:41):
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
(34:02):
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.
(34:22):
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
(34:44):
more and more are though.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
That's hilarus. That's like going the opposite of the birls.
Y'all go to Andrew and Dio and Drogan.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
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
(35:12):
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.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
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.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Is perceived than anything.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
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.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
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.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
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?
Speaker 1 (36:13):
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
(36:37):
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
(36:59):
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
(37:19):
smash things to help regular people.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
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.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
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.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
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?
Speaker 1 (37:51):
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.
(38:13):
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,
(38:37):
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,
(39:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
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.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
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
(39:49):
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
(40:10):
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
(40:31):
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,
(40:52):
they're not saying it to my face.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
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.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Will laugh at them? My best buddies will just send
them to me, And I'm like, God, damn it.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
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.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
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
(41:39):
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,
(42:01):
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
(42:23):
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.
(42:46):
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.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
My last question, is there anything Democrats can do to
stop the GOP megabill.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
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
(43:33):
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,
(43:57):
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.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
Nextime is your Democrats who support this bill be shamed.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
No, Democrats, you shupport this bill?
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Yeah, no, we do not support this bill.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
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.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
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.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Are they really cutting Medicaid? Yes, but they said they're not.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
I mean they say a lot of shit that they're
actually doing.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
I mean we don't read the bills, don't.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Yeah, yeah, No, they're really cutting.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
It's really in it. And they want to cut Medicaid.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yes, it It will kick fourteen million people off Medican Wow.
Fourteen million people. Wow.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Congressman Eric Swollwell, thank you so much for doing my
pleasure this morning, and don't be a stranger.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
I'll be back all right. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning.
Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club
Wake that ass up in the morning. Breakfast Club Morning.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
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.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome, Hey, thanks for having me on. How I'm good,
I'm good.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
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?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
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
(00:48):
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
(01:09):
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
(01:30):
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
(01:51):
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
(02:11):
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
(02:34):
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.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Was it a particular moment or situation that made you
be like, I don't lean towards conservative anymore.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
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.
(03:13):
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
(03:34):
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
(03:56):
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.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
You think we'll ever get back to centrist politics ever again?
I hope.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
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
(04:30):
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
(04:52):
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.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I want to ask, what do you think the biggest
thing the Democrats got wrong.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
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
(05:29):
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,
(05:52):
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
(06:14):
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.
(06:35):
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.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Have both because again I'll let you finish, but I
want to ask you something about that.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
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.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
I was going to ask you.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
So.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
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.
(07:28):
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.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
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
(08:02):
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.
(08:25):
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
(08:48):
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
(09:09):
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.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
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
(09:37):
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
(09:57):
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
(10:19):
in the White House, the economy does better. Why don't
you lead what a message that?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
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
(10:45):
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
(11:07):
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?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
Yeah, yeah, So how can you lie to people about
what they're actually putting in their pocket?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
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
(11:41):
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
(12:02):
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
(12:25):
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.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
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.
(13:05):
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.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
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
(13:34):
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
(13:57):
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
(14:19):
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
(14:43):
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.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
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.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
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.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
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.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
If that people are able to do it.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
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.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
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.
(16:15):
And I would I would flip that.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
I want to ask you, is the Republican Party a
bigger threat to democracy than foreign adversaries?
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Right now? Yes?
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Why is it?
Speaker 1 (16:25):
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
(16:47):
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.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
They don't look like da shape at all, but go ahead.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
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
(17:31):
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
(17:54):
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
(18:15):
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,
(18:38):
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,
(19:00):
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
(19:21):
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
(19:41):
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
(20:03):
they're acting on camera is to completely enable and be accomplish.
As to Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Isn't that all of y'allo?
Speaker 1 (20:12):
I hope not.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
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.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
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.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
I didn't spend no time with him at all.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
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.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
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.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
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,
(21:35):
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
(21:57):
make the cutoff sixty seven.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Age of cognitive decline though, because I mean, Joe, I
mean it's perception.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Though, it's perception.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Donal Trump's only a few years, a few years younger
than by somebody like Bernie any right.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
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
(22:30):
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
(22:52):
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.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
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.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, the Democrats don't look look like they look out
for their own.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
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.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
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
(23:58):
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
(24:23):
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
(24:44):
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
(25:06):
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,
(25:28):
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.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
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.
(25:58):
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.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
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
(26:29):
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,
(26:52):
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.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
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
(27:27):
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.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
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
(27:59):
nominee is twenty eight because you have the question of
whether Trump would run again, whether it would be a
se I can't.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Even be discussing it.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
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.
(28:26):
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.
(28:47):
We need just three seats and we can cut our
time in hell in half by winning the midterms.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
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.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
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
(29:24):
times are revealing who should lead and who should leave.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
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.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
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
(30:10):
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,
(30:31):
and now we have the majority of the House.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
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.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
But I can.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
But you're not the leader.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
I want the leader.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
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.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
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
(31:22):
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.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
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.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
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
(32:04):
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.
(32:24):
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.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
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?
Speaker 1 (32:57):
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
(33:20):
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,
(33:41):
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
(34:02):
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.
(34:22):
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
(34:44):
more and more are though.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
That's hilarus. That's like going the opposite of the birls.
Y'all go to Andrew and Dio and Drogan.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
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
(35:12):
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.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
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.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Is perceived than anything.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
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.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
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.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
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?
Speaker 1 (36:13):
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
(36:37):
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
(36:59):
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
(37:19):
smash things to help regular people.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
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.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
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.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
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?
Speaker 1 (37:51):
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.
(38:13):
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,
(38:37):
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,
(39:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
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.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
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
(39:49):
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
(40:10):
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
(40:31):
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,
(40:52):
they're not saying it to my face.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
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.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Will laugh at them? My best buddies will just send
them to me, And I'm like, God, damn it.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
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.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
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
(41:39):
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,
(42:01):
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
(42:23):
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.
(42:46):
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.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
My last question, is there anything Democrats can do to
stop the GOP megabill.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
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
(43:33):
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,
(43:57):
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.
Speaker 3 (44:05):
Nextime is your Democrats who support this bill be shamed.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
No, Democrats, you shupport this bill?
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Yeah, no, we do not support this bill.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
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.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
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.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Are they really cutting Medicaid? Yes, but they said they're not.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
I mean they say a lot of shit that they're
actually doing.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
I mean we don't read the bills, don't.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Yeah, yeah, No, they're really cutting.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
It's really in it. And they want to cut Medicaid.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yes, it It will kick fourteen million people off Medican Wow.
Fourteen million people. Wow.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Congressman Eric Swollwell, thank you so much for doing my
pleasure this morning, and don't be a stranger.
Speaker 1 (44:53):
I'll be back all right. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning.
Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club
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