MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Eric Swalwell

Interview

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And joining us now is Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell of California. He co-sponsored the censure resolution and served as an impeachment manager in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. And John Heilemann is with us. He`s an MSNBC and NBC national affairs analyst, executive editor or "Recount" and host of the "Hell and High Water" podcast.

Congressman Swalwell, you got this censure moving by co-sponsoring it. What was your reaction to the way the day went today?

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): Accountability prevailed again, Lawrence, and we`re seeing that with Steve Bannon. We`re seeing it with Donald Trump in the courts and we`re seeing it in the House of Representatives.

[22:15:04]

It`s hard to watch Jennifer Gosar frankly, to see any family member lose a brother. I mean, these are people that grew up together with the same parents, lived in the same House and she`s condemning her brother on national television. I don`t take that lightly.

Her brother was radicalized. He`s radicalized by Donald Trump. He was never condemned by Kevin McCarthy and he`s been unleashed on the Congress.

And, you know, Lawrence, you could rightfully say why do we care what Paul Gosar puts on the internet? There`s 5,000 minutes posted every minute on YouTube with weird stuff out there so if Paul Gosar wants to fly around with swords, who cares?

Well, we care because Paul Gosar is a member of Congress and millions of people watched that video and the temperature in Washington is quite hot. It`s quite volatile here because many of us spent hours in a safe room as rioters were attacking police officers before we could get back to the floor. And so when he has a fantasy about beheading one of my colleagues, it`s not a fantasy to think that this could be a call to action from people who watched it online.

O`DONNELL: John Heilemann, why do I get the feeling from congressman Gosar that the location of his parking space in the basement garage is probably more important to him than committee assignments?

JOHN HEILEMANN, MSNBC NATIONAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Because he doesn`t do any actual work, Lawrence. The thing about the anime video Congressman Swalwell is right, of course, that in the atmosphere that we currently see in the country, not just the Congress that things that obviously incite violence need to be denounced and reprimanded and there needs to be accountability. He`s right about that.

I think Congressman Lieu that pointed out anywhere in America if you made a video like that about a colleague, you`d be fired. I think it`s not just about Congress, it`s common standards of decency. To your point, Congressman Gosar is not a congressman. He exists only to lead to be part of insurrections, to be part of mobs, to be part of a right wing caucus that wants to overturn the normalcy of our government, wants to turnover the elected representation of our government, wants to install Donald Trump as president even though he lost the vote overwhelmingly in the popular vote and decisively in the electoral vote and there is no proof of anything else. We know the story.

He doesn`t take his job as congressman seriously. Every day, he mocks the oath that he took to office -- to the country when he took office, he exists to try to undermine all of our institutions and to try to own the libs and to sit on social media and try to put out things like this that will incite people to help him to pursue seditionist aims.

So, I don`t think he can care less. I have no idea what his attendance record is in committee hearings, but God knows most time he`s in there, he`s not thinking about doing the work of the people or doing the work of congress. Couldn`t care less.

O`DONNELL: Congressman Swalwell, John Heilemann has reframed my thinking of this in the instant here, which is that he`s not a congressman. So you cannot penalize him in any real way with congressional penalties. He can`t care about that.

SWALWELL: Yes, well, we have to show others who may care that there will be penalties and look, Paul Gosar as John mentioned, he represents chaos and Americans detest chaos. Americans like law and order, and if we have a country led by those who are unleashing chaos, then we are lost and so that`s why it was important today to say we`re going to keep stopping the chaos where we see it.

O`DONNELL: Yeah, John Heilemann, I guess you have to think of it the way traffic patrols think of it which is we`re not going to catch every speeder but when some speeders see us pull people over, they`re going to slow down.

SWALWELL: Right. Eric Swalwell is 100 percent right. The purpose for this punishment is as an example to others who might care about losing and being stripped of committee chairmanships or committee seats and committee assignments and there are Republicans that do care about that who care at least to the extent that being part of committee work might somehow bring back some federal funds to their district. Federal funds part of bills they will denounce as we`ve seen happening with this infrastructure bill or Republicans voting a against it are going back to districts and bragging about the money.

But there are Republicans out there who play that game and not as cynicalists as Representative Gosar and it`s important to send a message to those people, Lawrence.

[22:20:04]

And I do think that to the extent if there were a stiffer penalty that was -- that Congress had that was remotely applicable to this action, I think for that purpose, it would have been worth considering that penalty to bring against Congressman Gosar, an applicable penalty, a reasonable penalty, the strongest penalty possible because you must send messages to the other Republican members and any member who wants to think about doing something I`ll say again if you did any private business in America, you`d be fired instantly.

O`DONNELL: John Heilemann, and Congressman Eric Swalwell, thank you very much for joining us tonight. I really appreciate it.

SWALWELL: My pleasure. Thank you.

O`DONNELL: Thank you.

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