Democratic California Rep. Eric Swalwell compared President Donald Trump to his eight-year-old son on MS NOW while making the case that the president has “made illegal orders.”
Swalwell claimed that the president was “telling on himself” by his strong reaction to six Democratic members of Congress who in a Nov. 18 video posted to social media called on the U.S. military and intelligence community to disobey “illegal orders” given by the president and his administration. The congressman said Trump was throwing a “tantrum” by accusing the half dozen Democrats of sedition. Swalwell proceeded to invoke the Jan. 6, 2021 riot to justify his assertion that the president gave “illegal orders” in the past.
“He’s telling on himself. The reaction that the president has had to service members telling other service members, ‘You don’t have to follow an illegal order,’ and then his reaction is telling on himself,” the congressman said on “The Weeknight” in response to co-host Symone Sanders-Townsend’s question of whether it is “reasonable to fear” the president is giving illegal orders. (RELATED: Eric Swalwell Claims With Straight Face He ‘Doesn’t Wake Up Every Day’ To Fight Trump)
“Look, I think of my eight-year-old. I will tell him sometimes, if I’m working downstairs and he’s upstairs, like, ‘I better not find out that you’re on YouTube’ if he finds his way to a screen. If he throws a tantrum or if he loses it, and sometimes he does,” said Swalwell, who announced his run for California governor on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Thursday night.
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“I’m like, ‘OK, well, you’ve been on YouTube like you just told on yourself, otherwise you wouldn’t care,’” the California Democrat added. “The president is throwing a tantrum here and making these threats because he has made illegal orders in the past. Remember, in his first term, where he asked his military members why he couldn’t just shoot protesters, he clearly illegally, you know, aimed a mob at the Capitol after January 6.”
The Democratic lawmakers who took part in the Nov. 18 video — Sens. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mark Kelly of Arizona as well as Reps. Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire and Jason Crow of Colorado — repeatedly urged military and intelligence personnel to “refuse illegal orders” and to not “give up the ship.” Slotkin is a former CIA analyst while the other five lawmakers served as military officers.
“Because now more than ever, the American people need you. We need you to stand up for our laws, our Constitution, and who we are as Americans,” the lawmakers said in the video, alternating lines.
“THE TRAITORS THAT TOLD THE MILITARY TO DISOBEY MY ORDERS SHOULD BE IN JAIL RIGHT NOW, NOT ROAMING THE FAKE NEWS NETWORKS TRYING TO EXPLAIN THAT WHAT THEY SAID WAS OK,” Trump wrote in a Saturday Truth Social post in reference to the six Democrats. “IT WASN’T, AND NEVER WILL BE! IT WAS SEDITION AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL, AND SEDITION IS A MAJOR CRIME.”
ABC News’ Martha Raddatz asked Slotkin on Sunday whether Trump had made illegal orders in the past.
“To my knowledge, I am not aware of things that are illegal,” the senator, who had posted the controversial video to X, answered. She went on to claim that there were “some legal gymnastics” with regards to the Trump administration’s strikes on alleged narcotrafficking boats in the Caribbean — but did not appear to call the strikes themselves illegal.
Swalwell was referred to the Department of Justice over alleged mortgage fraud on Nov. 13, one week before announcing his gubernatorial campaign.
The congressman previously compared Trump to his three-year-old son in a May X post that attacked the president’s economic policy.
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