Congressman Eric Swalwell
Appearances
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
I don't trust them one bit. That's why in this government funding vote that we have coming up, we as Democrats, if we just sign off, co-sign on what they're doing and give them the votes, to me, forget it. They've shown us they're not honoring what Congress has done in the past. I spoke, I was in the Midwest because I think Democrats need to go everywhere. I was in Missouri on Thursday.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
And this small business owner told me he had a $20 million contract that he already fulfilled from USAID. And he was told we're not paying it because of these doge cuts. And he had been making calls all that day to lay off his team. I mean, that's funny. This is like what they're doing to people.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
So we as Democrats, if they need our votes to keep government open, we should insist, as I said, on the shortest runway for them to spend money, make sure they honor their deals before we even give them another round of funding. That's the leverage that we have. And if they don't honor that, then then, yes, I will agree with you. Then we are in a different place.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
But here's where we're also not helpless. In New York, in Illinois, in California, in Colorado, in Michigan, in some of the biggest states in America, you have Democratic attorneys general who are not powerless. They are the chief law enforcement officers of their states.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
And if he wants to create a constitutional crisis by not following the law, Donald Trump, I would invite them to do everything they can To invent to be as inventive as possible to hold them accountable and say, great. Well, anyone in the administration, I invite them to visit our state because there's an arrest warrant waiting for you because you won't follow the law.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
If that's where they want to go, then those attorneys general also have powers. Here's what what. pisses me off about Democrats. We're like afraid of power. We get like nervous when we have power and we're like, Oh, like we gotta, we gotta find consensus and we gotta follow the customs and the norms and the institutions. And the American people are like, we just gave you majorities.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
So go fight for and deliver the things that the majority of the people want. And so we can't be so afraid to use the power that we have when they're abusing the very little power that they have. They didn't come in with a mandate. They came in with this tiny Trump. Right. That's what the power is.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
You should just be ourselves. I totally agree. When we put a guy who was judged as a rapist, who had 34 counts, owes hundreds of millions of dollars to a number of different people. When we made him president, you should have been liberated. Just be yourself. Save yourself. What you believe in, your values will guide you, but don't be so scripted, so polished, so many talking points.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
Just be yourself. And people want to like you and they want to trust you. And they don't want you trying to win some Harvard Law School moot court competition when you're making your case. Just do it from here.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
So just say it, I guess is what I'm telling my colleagues. i i told jasmine crockett um love her on thursday as we were leaving the floor i said she had also shined in like a hearing the day before and i i think she said to for musk to off if you remember um and i told her i said you know what i said in five years like if we somehow get out of this.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
and it's a complete failure to recognize what that alliance has meant to our country because because he is a welfare king who relies on u.s government dollars to fund his life he doesn't understand the sacrifice that our service member members and our veterans have given and by the way it was after september 11
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
I said, none of us are going to look back and say, do you think I was too harsh? Do you think I took it too far? No, we're going to say the opposite. We probably didn't do enough. So if we want to save it, we have to be all in that. That's that's it. We have to be all in.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
We need unity in these next couple of weeks on that big vote that's coming up. As I said, Republicans have to keep the government, their government, their government going in the next couple of days. They don't have a plan. They don't have their shit together. They've never been able to do this. They've always needed us. What we're going to see out of Hakim is unity.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
That was a strength over the last two years. When we were the ones that funded Ukraine, we were the ones that kept the government open. We were the ones that prevented the debt collapse from happening. It was unity. And so that's what we need is to show our constituents, to show the American people, we hear you. We are fighting for you.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
That unity is going to be so important to show that we are not disjointed. where we could use your help and where we have to really stand up, we have to start going to the districts where they won't do town halls. Because there's kind of an order now that, and I've talked to some of my Republican colleagues this week, they're being told, don't do town halls. Like, don't walk into this setup.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
I'm doing all right. It's Sunday morning. You can hear Sunday chaos in my house right now with a seven-year-old, a six-year-old, and a three-year-old who are just in revolt. But yeah, I've got my coffee. I'm loaded for bear, so let's go.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
And so what we should do is we'd be like, hey, I'll come to your district. I'll do a town hall. I'm going to Idaho, by the way.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
take it i mean i just that is so typical so i mean we should we should start doing that and i as i said i'm i was in missouri on thursday we had a house party in the st louis suburbs 100 people and it was put together 12 hours uh before so i'll be in idaho this weekend and we have a plan to start and i'm talking to jasmine i'm talking to other colleagues who i think can really
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
when we were hit and those towers fell and those cops and firefighters died and we had to hit back to make sure it would never happen again, it was the NATO alliance that stood with us and made sure that something like that would never happen again. So all of the countries that Donald Trump is shitting all over right now, those are the ones that went shoulder to shoulder with us
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
bring people out and are good listeners and and good fighters to say, hey, we'll do the town hall. I feel like I'll talk to your constituents.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
He's like, someone, give me a commitment. Anything. Where can I go?
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
Veterans Hall. You're in Veterans Hall.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
But Moses, I think, also had one of the commandments that said you're not supposed to be a cult, right?
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
in afghanistan and so i and i've talked to them they've come to my many of the leaders from those countries and the representatives have been in my offices uh in the last couple weeks and it feels to them like complete betrayal especially the canadians it's just complete betrayal like how how could you do this to it like tariffs fine we'll go back and forth on tariffs but when you say that we're going to be your 51st state
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
And he'll tell the generals to shoot the protesters. That could happen because he wanted to do that last time. He just happened to have a general in General Milley who wasn't going to let him do that. But that's his instinct. That's how he's wired. So yes, we should be prepared for that.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
Well, look, I see right now so many people rising to the occasion. We talked about Jasmine Crockett, Robert Garcia in Long Beach. I mean, he is beating back Marjorie Taylor Greene and her bullshit every single day. Jared Moskowitz, Dan Goldman are now on the Judiciary Committee as well. Obviously, Jamie Raskin, every hearing with Jim Jordan.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
yeah aoc yeah alex uh and bernie went to them that we should follow that model just go talk to people and as i said next week we have the state of the union and then this budget vote watch as hakeem has to unify 215 of us from all over the country his strength has always been his ability and that's that's the job of a leader uh is unity and so yeah i'm looking forward to seeing us really unify as we unified last week
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
where not a single Democrat gave them a vote to cut $800 billion. Not one of us voted, and it wasn't an easy vote for them. And by the way, also, they're all now, the Republicans are freaking out because they're like, wait, we really did this? Now we have to actually go find the cuts? Like many of them were hoping that they would vote for it, but that it wouldn't pass.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
And now that it's passed, they're in this like, oh shit, like we're gonna have to cut
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
And by the way, the one thing that we were truly promised that on day one costs would go down, they're going up. We just saw that we're predicted to have the slowest GDP growth in decades. It's a Trump slump. Trump slump. And by the way, he, in the first 40 days, he's gone to the Daytona 500. He's gone to the Super Bowl. He's gone to the boxing matches. He's gone golfing.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
They're just like, what the fuck? Are you kidding me? And what happened, by the way, I guess you would call it the coup de grace of America's reputation in the world with that Zelensky meeting. It will take 100 years for our best friends in the world to unsee that. 100 years for them to unsee that.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
The one place we need him to go to is a fucking grocery store. Go to a grocery store.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
He would... Trump was going... Zelensky could have shown up in a Xenia suit, like fan-tailored, and Trump was going to shit all over him. And what I respect about Zelensky so much is at the end of the day, Zelensky knows that Trump will always side with Putin. So he wasn't going to play the game.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
And you've seen all of these other European leaders who are saying, oh, you got to walk in there and say one thing and then do the other. That's how it works with Trump. Except that Zelensky is the only one who is actually in a war zone right now.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
And he walked in there because he needed to have the credibility to the people in his country who are going to fight for him, that he wasn't just going to completely roll over and say that every sacrifice they have all made was in vain because Zelensky was going to let their country be a client state to the United States.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
And he will be remembered well for the way he conducted himself in that Oval Office. And Americans will look for centuries in shame at what Donald Trump and J.D. Vance did.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
And you want to know who the real man was in that picture? So think of that picture that history will remember for 100 years. Where are each of them right now? Trump went golfing, Vance went skiing, and Zelensky went to a Warsaw. I know who the man is in that trio.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
They're going to continue to fight that. I had Ukrainians in my office just two weeks ago. They're fighting for their country because the alternative is that they're completely owned by Russia and their freedom is gone. Now, I do believe that they have alliances in Europe, not just because Europeans
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
believe in freedom for Ukraine, but they're smart enough to know from history that if Ukraine falls, that they are next. And so they are stepping up. It's just it feels so shitty, though, you know, to be an American who typically takes on the axis of evil to see that we've now joined them. And last week at the United Nations, are you kidding me?
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
We voted with Iran and North Korea and Russia and Belarus, even even China abstained. Like what? Like China abstained from the crazy ass vote that we went along with when it came to Ukraine. It just, that's not who we are.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
basically, we own Canada, shut down the border. Like, it's so funny that he has also, like, people think that the Canadian border is the problem. Justin Trudeau, by the way, told me once in a meeting, he said, we have a real problem, Canada, with guns coming through our southern border. And I was like, oh, fuck. He's talking about us. Like, our guns. We're the southern border problem.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
But to your point, Do you think that when we align with Russia and we have to go to war with Russia, you know, against the rest of the world, which is where Donald Trump, you know, probably wants to take us. Do you think Barron is the one that's going to go fight? No, no, it's poor kids.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
It's working class kids that are going to have to fight, you know, the lunacy that Donald Trump has aligned us with. So we're not gonna let that happen. I fired up when I see what's happening at these town halls, what I see,
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
look at you know the folks i met with in missouri on a thursday night with 12 hours notice who were like tell us what to do tell us where to go i told them it's wisconsin it's the town halls right now uh it's you know supporting candidates for the midterms we're not helpless uh and by the way when we win the midterms and it means democratic states have to really hold strong right now to make sure that they use all of their power to make sure people have access to the
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
voting booth, when we win the midterms, we're going to cut our time in hell in half and begin this comeback. We're not helpless at all. Your viewers aren't helpless. I'm watching them. They're all with you on this. And my colleagues, we have to be all in as well.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
We won't just be to celebrate a warrior's victory. It'll be to actually get some stuff done.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
Donald Trump acts like a Russian asset. I mean, you, you, Whatever it is that they have on him, or it would be even worse if they didn't and he acts like this, but you can just say he acts like somebody who wants to help Russia more than he wants to help America. My sweet dad, I talked to him last night, a Republican, he... a very conservative Republican, a very Reagan Republican.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
And we were talking about the Zelensky meeting and He took a very Republican approach to it, but he still said to me at the end of our call, he said, I just I don't understand why. Why does Trump like Putin so much like that to like a 78 year old man who has seen a lot of things and has served his community as my dad has a police officer? I think that's what most ordinary people are saying.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
It's like, where the fuck does this guy look to Putin before? He looks to us. And I'll just tell you, to me, it's Occam's razor. The easiest answer is the right one. It's because Putin likes Trump. Russia has invested in Trump and the Russians who have invested in his businesses, his properties. Trump has tried to invest in Russia and in the biggest election of his life.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
No one outside of America did more to help Donald Trump get elected than Russia. And he said, and it was in response to Trump saying, Russia, if you're listening, it would help me if you hacked her emails. And then they went to work to hack her emails. And then he looks at Ukraine and he's like, what can these guys do for me? And so now he's kind of circled and landed on this mineral deal.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
Like, again, to him, it's just he has to get something out of this until they're even worth something to him.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
He's a ketamine. A ketamine. He's a ketamine.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
fight like America won't be around tomorrow. Because right now, that's the direction we're going in. And someone like Musk, he doesn't want a world order. He doesn't want agreements among nation states that keep us all safe and allow people to work hard, do better, dream bigger. He wants a world that is run and ordered by oligarchs like himself. That's what he wants. So he has no fidelity to
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
america in fact you know bringing this guy in you know for doge his fiduciary duty has always been to shareholders and investors not to people who rely on government services and so that's why oops we broke ebola like sorry guys uh you know as he said in the oval office he doesn't have to think about the services you rely on that you need like health care or retirement security you know he called social security
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
Ponzi scheme. He's not going to protect anything you care about because he's not wired that way. He may be one of the most brilliant scientists who has ever walked this earth. I will give him that.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
But his... his duty is to his investors when he's in the private sector. And now as he takes all of this money from the federal government, he's just trying to make a fat cat fatter himself. And so, yes, Russia is on the ropes and we had a chance to talk with them and they've, They're stronger than ever. And Putin got everything that he wanted in the first 40 days of the Trump administration.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
So let me level set us. What can we do? We are not helpless. So your viewers who have gone to these town halls across the country, that's working. Many of those members who have felt the heat in deep red Georgia and other places across the country, they're already publicly changing their tune about Doge, that's working. There's a Wisconsin Supreme Court race on April 1.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
Please help the Wisconsin Democratic Party, WisDems, If we win that seat, we have a chance to get rid of the rigged gerrymandering in a state where you have a Democratic governor, Democratic senator, and Democratic lieutenant governor, yet the congressional delegation is six Republicans, two Democrats.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
Those maps could be redrawn in a way that is much more fair for us and could get us two-thirds of the way of the seats that we need to win the House.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
in 2026 then my colleagues please stay on them we've got to vote in just a couple days on funding the government to my democratic colleagues i say do not take the bait that we are going to shut down government democrats one republicans own this government musk owns this government entirely and two two They've already shut down the government.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
When you get rid of the people who monitor bird flu as egg prices are going up, it's shut down. When you get rid of scientists who track diseases when we have a measles outbreak and people are dying, it's shut down. Air traffic controllers. traffic controllers, planes are crashing, it's shut down. FBI agents as terrorist attacks are being plotted, it's shut down. This thing is shutting down.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
So we should not take any bait from the media that we can keep it open. No, they need to fund it and keep it open. And if they need our votes to actually protect and help people, then we should insist that they actually put all of this back in place, especially healthcare, retirement security, public safety. And I wouldn't trust them
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
longer than 30 days i would not give them a budget for longer than 30 days at a time i just kind of my seven-year-old just ran across the screen here i don't trust him for longer than a couple weeks at a time whenever i strike a deal with him and so i would say here's your money come back to me in 30 days if you keep our deal i'll give you 30 more days and 30 more days and 30 more days because we would be fools if we gave them a nine-month budget and believe that they would actually honor any of it they will they would
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
Absolutely not do it. And we will do the rules. So we cannot give away the leverage that we have, which is that they can't get their act together. And by the way, in the last Congress, they needed us for the majority of the votes to keep government open every single time. The margins have only gotten thinner because we picked up 10 seats. So they're not going to get better at this.
IHIP News
Live: Fighting Russia AND Trump with Congressman Eric Swalwell
They're going to just continue to show their asses and not be able to pass a budget. Sorry, I'm keeping my person down with the babies upstairs.