Transcript of Rep. Eric Swalwell on Leading Efforts to Hold Trump Accountable

It gets worse for the MAGA Republicans. If you thought it was embarrassing what MAGA Mike and other GOP members were saying about how Donald Trump's signature was forged 20 years ago, and it was planted in the Epstein's birthday book, along with Epstein's other friends, when Donald Trump was best friends with him, only to resurface 20 years later as part of a broader plot by the deep state. Well, Pete Sessions, one update. Here's a MAGA Republican Congress member, Pete Sessions, explain.

The President's probably worked through this along a long time ago. They had the knowledge, they had the data, they had the information. He can draw a conclusion after six months. I've not drawn that conclusion yet.

Does it look like his signature to you on the bottom of that letter?

We're looking at that. We're also looking at people who are gathering together his signature at the time, and that's what we need to pay attention to. We've been providing the information. Now what we to do is draw our own conclusion.

To you, it's an open question about whether that's his signature on this document.

Well, evidently, the President, who was not under oath, stated it was not his. The White House has stated that. We will start from that perspective.

We will start from the perspective of a convicted felon and someone found civilly liable for sexual abuse and someone who lies about everything his entire life. We'll start with that perspective. Let's bring in Democratic Congress member Eric Swalwell, just appointed as the ranking member of the January sixth subcommittee, which I definitely want to talk about. But I just want to start here because it's more than even the Epstein files at this point. It is this, which is important. But what the hell are we even watching there? It's just embarrassing for our country.

They think they need a handwriting expert, really? You need a handwriting expert for the guy with the most obnoxious signature in the world? We need to bring in an expert? No, I have fucking eyes. I can tell what Donald Trump's signature looks like. And by the way, this didn't just fall out of the sky. This was provided by the Epstein estate. So now they, for whatever reason, are in on it. It doesn't make any sense. And it shouldn't surprise you that the guy who said, you're allowed to grab him by the pussy, and the guy who's been found and judged liable for sexual assault would write that letter. What are we doing here? Wasting our time bringing in handwriting experts. What they're trying to do is to tell us to not believe our own eyes. It's not just on Epstein, it's on the prices that we were told would plummet and they're going up, the jobs that would be pouring in and they're being sucked out, the wars that were supposed to end. And instead, we have a conflict and conflicts being added to the map. We are not the Department of Defense, we're the Department of War.

He's just telling us not to believe our own eyes. And what we have to do is make sure that we always put the truth over Trump.

Because then they try to replace the truth with these really dangerous and bizarre facts. I mean, you mentioned prices and tariffs, which have been a complete absolute disaster. So what does Trump do? He says, Inflation zero, which it's not. And he says that he brought in $17 trillion dollars already, unclear then why we need to raise the debt ceiling by five trillion or why there's any issues at all with this budget. I mean, if you got 17 trillion, it's making it rain on the country. We should all be great. But he makes it 17 trillion, and then it's just believe it. And then it gets reported by financial news as though he said 17 trillion. It's like, he did. It's a lie. It's not 1 trillion.

We have to make it clear that he has broken every promise. As I said, wars were supposed to end on day one. Prices were supposed to plummet. Jobs were supposed to soar. Instead, Ukraine has never been weaker. When it comes to to jobs. We've never seen more job losses since the last time he was President. The cost of beef has never been higher. And by the way, as it relates to his own health, Joe Biden looks like an Olympic athlete compared to this guy right now. So he's a broken man who has made a lot of broken promises. And if he's not checked, we're going to be a broken country. That's the hard truth right now.

Well, he did put out a powerful response moments ago to Russia sending drones into Eastern Poland, which would be a violation also of... It would trigger Article 5, and it's the first time a NATO nation has been attacked by Russia, really, at all. But here's his response. This is the formal response. What's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with the drones? Here we go. Here we go. How does this appeal to... That's the response from the President of the United States. It That's like a barstool hot take, right?

Like a guy looking up at the fucking TV at a bar and like, Oh, what's with Russia putting drones in Poland's airspace? Not the guy who's sitting at the Resolute desk who's supposed to be leading us. And by the way, this is the first time in American history that a president has presided when a NATO country has been attacked by a nation state. That has never happened before. So this guy, again, who was going to end all these conflicts on day one, who was going to flex with his Department of War, has made us look quite weak.

Let's talk about something else that Donald Trump says is one big hoax. It's like, where we start? What we all saw on January sixth, the day that will live in infamy, part of a handful of days that were probably the most shameful day in the United States. But MAGA, Trump, Republicans, your colleagues, Republican colleagues, have tried to erase everything about January sixth. They've now even created a subcommittee in order to try to recreate the history around it. You've been appointed as the ranking member by Hakeem Jeffrey and Democrats in Congress to push back. Tell us why this is such a big deal.

We have to put the truth over Trump. This is just another example of Trump telling us not to believe our own eyes. If you think about it, there's three days in American history that are the three most important. December 6, 1941, when Pearl Harbor was bombed, September 11, and January 6. The last two, by the way, I don't even have to tell you the years that they happened because they're seared in our memory, and we saw them with our own eyes. Donald Now, Trump is now going the way of the 9/11 truthers who would tell you that missiles and holograms took down those buildings and wants us to erase what we saw with some other conspiracy theory as to what happened on January sixth. He's doing this, I think, for two reasons. One, this is the final act to wash his hands of his own culpability for January sixth, but also to normalize for the country political violence. What myself and Jamie Raskin and Jasmine Crockett and Jared Moskowitz are going to do is we're going to make sure that we honor the heroes that day, and they are not Ashley Babbit and the protesters.

It's Mike Fanone, Sergeant Ganell, Danny Hodges, Harry Dunn, and the hundreds of other officers. We're going to make sure that they're compensated as far as their health needs, because many of them still have outstanding needs. We're going to put the plaque that is supposed to be displayed in the Capitol in every hearing and make sure that it's displayed in the capital as was passed into law that honors what they did. We're going to make sure that the unfinished business of the January sixth Committee, like the subpoenas that Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan did honor, that they are front and center. If they want to bring this back up, we're happy to talk about it. But we are going, as I said earlier, to put the truth over Trump in every way.

It's also very telling that this is what Republicans want to be focused on right now. Like of all of the issues out there, they want to relitigate and lie about January sixth versus doing oversight of any other issue imaginable or talk about affordability or talk about the issues that are... This is where they're going. Americans, our closing argument before we head into a 2026 season is January sixth, everybody.

That's right. People, as I said, we have our own eyes. We're not going to be fooled. We know that most of the things we buy are costing too much, that homes are unaffordable, that health has been taken away from us, that our neighbors are being deported, and we're not going to be fooled. You have three fighters in me, Crockett and Moskowitz, who are going to be on that committee, and we're committed every day to make sure that the truth always prevails.

We're both from California. I'm from Southern California. Van Nye is not too far away from where I live, where my wife's family live, is right where a lot of these roving ICE patrols take place, primarily a Latino community. When we see images that I'm about to show you right here, and you have Trump and his regime saying this is what they want to bring across the country right now, invasion-like attacks on states and cities. And then Donald Trump's response to Putin is, Whoa, nice drone attack, big guy. I mean, it's just a wild... Just take a look at this video. This is ICE going into people with apparently lawful papers and maybe a pregnant woman even pointing guns at them. Watch this.

Playing out today, one day after the Supreme Court lifted the ban on so-called roving immigration patrols. This video of federal agent swarming a car, entertaining people at gunpoint, was captured in a Vanhize parking lot this morning.

Out of the car, now.

With weapons drawn, federal agents walk toward the driver's side of this red vehicle in a Vanhize parking lot. Luis tells us he was in the area when he saw what was happening and began to film.

That's when I saw this chaos, guns, drawn, everything. The girl was there screaming like, Why are you guys pointing guns at us? We're not doing anything. That's when they got close. They break the window, they dragged the guys out. Then the female, she said she was pregnant, but they were just all these guys gang up on her.

A man who identified himself as a friend of some of the people in the car did not want to go on camera but said the two men are lawful permanent residents and that the woman is a US citizen. On the passenger side, an agent points his gun at a woman who said, If you touch me, I'm suing you. She then steps out of the car. This comes one day after the Supreme Court lifted a federal judge's temporary ban on the Department of Homeland Security's so-called Roving Patrolls, which have been denounced as unconstitutional and carried out through racial profiling.

Yeah, I mean, what are we doing here in the United States of America? I mean, truthfully, a shame time period.

Who signed up for this, right? Who wanted this? We were told MS 13 is who they would be targeting, and they're going after our friends and neighbors. People are running through Home Depot parking lots and farm fields and car washes, and we're not seeing the most violent people deported. I do want to tell you that Democrats have to make clear what we're going to do when we have the majority and we have oversight and we have the power of the purse. One issue that I I promise you is going to be addressed is we are going to unmask ICE. If they are so sure about what they're doing, they can show their faces. But these days of going into communities and terrorizing people in a the last way, like bank robber, bandits of the 19th century, that's going to come to an end. No other law enforcement agency does this. It's terrorizing the people. If you're so sure that you have the right people and you're standing on the law and the facts, you shouldn't be afraid to show your face.

Congressman, before we go, any final message or any other areas you wanted to cover or talk to our 6 million subscribers about here?

I want to thank them for staying in the fight. I want to tell them that the fight that's right in front of us is Prop 50 in California, and that's on November 4. Texas is trying to steal, has already stolen five Congressional seeks through their rigedistricting process. Donald Trump is not going into the midterms trying to sell you on the big brutal bill or on his deportation policies of our neighbors or on what he's doing globally to reduce conflicts. He's not trying to convince you that there should be more of that. He's just trying to make it harder for Democrats to win and check his abuses of power. He did that in Texas, and the only way to counter that is by passing Prop 50. You'll soon receive ballots in California to vote yes on Prop 50 to counter what Texas is doing and to flex back in California.

Congressman Eric Swalwell, look forward to seeing you as the ranking member on that Jan 6 subcommittee. Keep us posted on any other developments.

All in. All right. Thanks, man.

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