Swalwell That Ends Well

Summary

The Commentary Magazine Podcast

Episode: Swalwell That Ends Well
Date: April 14, 2026
Host: John Podhoretz, with Abe Greenwald, Seth Mandel, Eliana Johnson
Theme: Political rumor, scandal, and how modern politics blends information warfare, media manipulation, and personal downfall—particularly centering on the Eric Swalwell resignation and U.S.-Iran policy leaks.

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Overview

This episode explores two main stories:

1. The suspicious media leak regarding the U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations and what it reveals about information warfare, media access, and conflicting agendas in Washington.
2. The dramatic fall of Congressman Eric Swalwell, discussing his scandals, forced resignation, and broader implications for political accountability and media treatment of personal misconduct.

The hosts weave together analysis of current events, insider media-politics interplay, and cultural commentary, encapsulated by sharp skepticism and dark humor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Skepticism Over Iran Nuclear Deal Leak

[00:46–15:12]

• Rumor Origins:
  Multiple major outlets (Axios, NY Post, NY Times) report the U.S. offered Iran a 20-year nuclear enrichment freeze in exchange for a deal; Iran countered with five years.
• Single-Sourced Reporting:
  All stories cited just one unnamed American official, leading the panel (esp. John and Eliana) to suspect the same leaker is pushing the story everywhere for specific reasons.
  • “It's probably the same official. It's the same person going around talking to lots and lots of people.” – Eliana [06:19]
• Skepticism and Analysis:
  • The proposal closely resembles the despised JCPOA deal, which makes the report suspect.
  • Senator J.D. Vance appeared on Fox News countering the media narrative, stating the U.S. red lines are much stricter: the total handover of all enriched uranium (“the dust”) and Iran never getting the bomb.
  • The Iranians were not capable of making a deal; their negotiators lacked real authority.
  • Panel suspects the leak serves the “restrictor”/anti-war camp, making a negotiated end to the conflict seem more plausible to doves/restraint advocates.
• Media Critique:
  • The hosts debate the gullibility of the press in running a story with only one source, not matching the ‘hard line’ positioning the administration’s taken.
    • Notable quote:
      “I'm having a very hard time understanding whose purpose would be satisfied by retelling a story that's in that Goldilocks zone.” – Abe [11:32]

Notable Moments

• Eliana highlights the challenge of separating fact from “information warfare” and “deception on both sides” in such stories. [07:32]
• Seth points out how a handful of officials/leakers can entirely shape the public narrative—often based on factional positioning, not objective truth. [09:14]

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2. The Blockade, China, and U.S. Leverage

[17:53–22:00]

• Implementation Woes:
  Reports of Chinese ships running the U.S. blockade on Iranian oil raise questions: Did the U.S. allow it to avoid outright confrontation? Is the blockade mostly for show?
  • The panel speculates on the tactical objectives: not to choke global shipping entirely but pressure Iran, while managing Chinese and Russian interests.
• Grand Strategy:
  The U.S. actually holds most of the economic cards, since China is far more dependent on international oil than the U.S., but there’s much uncertainty about backchannel dealings.

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3. Eric Swalwell’s Resignation—Scandal and Consequences

[22:00–44:57]

Details of the Scandal:

• Multiple allegations:
  • Sex scandals (affairs, a Chinese intelligence “honey trap,” alleged sexual assault against a staffer, video and nude photos).
  • Previously, major figures like Nancy Pelosi elevated Swalwell; now, even supporters demand resignation.
  • Comparison with other disgraced figures (Michael Avenatti, Andrew Cuomo).
    • “Swalwell represents the latest in the line of people who came to prominence by attacking Donald Trump, and getting blown up before Trump does.” – John [23:53]

Political & Media Response:

• Contrasts with others:
  • Menendez “rode the scandal out” while Swalwell couldn’t.
  • Investigation into AZ Sen. Ruben Gallego’s private life gets little mainstream media attention, despite serious personal controversies, illustrating selective outrage.
    • “There has been zero curiosity about what are obvious inconsistencies in Gallego's public story from the mainstream press.” – Eliana [29:05]
    • “If Gallego gets…in the way, why wouldn't his opponents do to Gallego what Swalwell's opponents did to Swalwell?” – Seth [30:36]

Culture & Media Reflections:

• Discusses the broader MeToo movement's ebb in politics.
• Speculation that with TMZ opening a D.C. bureau, sensational political scandals could multiply as politics becomes more “wholly entertainment.”
  • “Politics has become more wholly entertainment, it is now subsumed under the entertainment tent. So politicians have made themselves targets of the entertainment media in a way that they didn't used to be.” – Abe [39:45]

Security Dangers:

• Swalwell’s continued presence on the Intelligence Committee after being compromised by a Chinese agent is sharply condemned.
  • “Swalwell should have disappeared from public life when it was revealed he was the target of a Chinese honey trap.” – Abe [31:42]

Memorable Quotes

• “How do you get, when you have three young children, how do you put yourself in this position? How do you close your eyes at night and actually fall asleep knowing that there are all these women out there and all these pictures out there that any day could drop on your head?” – Eliana [46:48]
• “If we did go after every member of Congress and boot the ones who were doing that, that would be. Be okay with me.” – Eliana [44:57]

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4. Media, MeToo, and the Nature of Scandal

[35:56–43:49]

• Discussion on why MeToo “died” in politics while remaining potent in entertainment and media.
• John uses Woody Allen as an example: blacklisted in media, but not convicted—meanwhile, politicians face little for misdeeds until they become a liability for party leadership.

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5. Middle East Diplomatic Shifts – Israel, Lebanon, and U.S. Role

[47:15–52:52]

Historic Negotiations:

• U.S.-mediated direct talks between Israel and Lebanon (first since cold peace with Jordan), with significance for Iran, Hezbollah, and broader regional realignment.
• U.S. engagement (“stepping in instead of stepping back”) seen as crucial to even making such diplomacy possible.
  • “[Lebanon] would never step out this far on a strong horse…if they didn't feel like the American administration was wholly behind what they are doing.” – Seth [52:36]

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6. Trump, the Pope, and the Politics of Outrage

[52:52–61:44]

Trump's Jesus Meme Controversy:

• Trump shares a meme depicting himself as Jesus; claims confusion, saying he thought he was pictured as a doctor.
• Panel both ridicules the defense (“Maybe he didn’t have his glasses on,” “How familiar is he with religious imagery?”) and notes the blurred lines between genuine outrage and performative criticism.
• John and Abe reflect on Trump’s fundamental egregiousness—cannot be contained or genuinely reproached—despite possible historic achievements.
  • “He is impossible to reproach… because reproaching has no effect on him.” – John [61:00]

Notable Moment:

• Trump’s lashing out at Riley Gaines, a Republican-aligned women’s sports advocate, after she gently criticized his meme.
• Running joke: “Today is the day Trump became Pope.” [61:12]

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7. Running Jokes & Pop Culture References

• Joking suggestion of American Cardinal/Pope Robert Prevost running for U.S. President (“Prevost '28!”) [61:44–63:12]
• Quips about Chicago “machine” politics and possible cabinet appointments (the Daly family).

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Notable Quotes

• “There are 535 elected members of Congress… A lot of them are human garbage and behave in disgusting ways. And somehow they have alluded to a lot of the moral…reckonings that actually others have had to deal with for reasons that elude some understanding.” – John [34:30]
• “MeToo was actually started as a method of extra political assault to get somebody who couldn't be gotten at the ballot box. It ended up turning on its own and eating its own culturally and then kind of going away.” – John [41:05]
• “Swalwell's the perfect example of that…he hangs out in showbiz circles. He's a favorite of Jimmy Kimmel's…he's got a sort of, like, hunky vibe.” – John [40:32]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Iran Leak/Information Warfare: 00:46–15:12
• China & Blockade Speculation: 17:53–22:00
• Eric Swalwell Resignation Scandal: 22:00–44:57
• MeToo/Ethics in Politics: 35:56–43:49
• Israel-Lebanon Talks & U.S. Role: 47:15–52:52
• Trump/Pope/Meme Outrage: 52:52–61:44
• Pop Culture Jokes (Pope/President): 61:44–63:12

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Summary Takeaway

This episode deftly traverses the intersection of elite rumor-mongering, scandal, and foreign policy—showing how leaks shape national narratives, how some scandals end careers while others are shrugged off, and how U.S. power plays out in the Mideast.

The hosts’ tone is skeptical, unsparing, and wry, with frequent gallows humor about the state of political and media culture. For listeners, it’s a brisk, opinionated roadmap of why it’s hard to trust Washington stories—and why the personal downfalls of public figures never quite play out the way their enemies (or friends) expect.

Transcript

[A]

Hope for the best, expect the worst Some drinks and pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best, Expect the worst, Hope for the best. Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Tuesday, April 14, 2026. I am Jon Pod Horiz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[B]

Hi, John.

[A]

Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.

[C]

Hi, John.

[A]

And Washington Free Beacon editor Eliana Johnson. Hi, Eliana.

[D]

Hi, John.

[A]

Okay, so just get Iran out of the way very quickly. Story been circulating for the last 18 hours that the United States offered Iran a deal where they would suspend enrichment for 20 years in exchange for a deal, and the Iranians came back with five years. And I do not believe this story to be true. And I'm just going to explain why. Three major sources, three major outlets have reported this story. One was Axios through Barack Ravid yesterday morning. Then someone in the New York Post reported it yesterday afternoon and it is in the New York Times. And the lead story this morning, which was released sometime early evening yesterday, in every one of those stories, the story is sourced to an American official, one American official, which would lead me to believe, based on my experience and I think Eliana, as a former, you know, line reporter on these matters, you can kind of guess it's the same American official if there's one and only one. And somebody wants to retail the idea that the United States was offering a deal where the Iranians could enrich in 20 years and that the Iranians offered five and that somehow we implicitly were unreasonable in not trying to negotiate more. The reason I think this is a lie is that it is too close to the JCPOA, which had a 10 year window suspending enrichment and then allowing enrichment. Trump said that was the worst deal ever struck. Maybe you could make the argument that 20 years would be a better deal than 10, but nonetheless, that is what the story says. But J.D. vance went on with Bret Baier last night and essentially blew up the story. He said, we have two red lines, one red line, which is kind of a interesting gloss on where we thought we were, which is they can never have a nuclear weapon. It's not just that they can't have a nuclear weapon. He said, point number one is we need the dust. What they're referring to as the dust that is the 800, supposedly 800 pounds of enriched uranium that the Iranians have. We need it, we need to secure it, we need to come into possession of it. And second, that they never Get a nuclear weapon. So if we're getting all of their enriched uranium, yes, in theory, they could then start a new program or clandestine program to make more. But if our hardline position that we would not move off of in a negotiation that Vance actually said was oddly promising, according to him, there was a lot of movement and there was a lot of conversation, but that the negotiators on the Iranian side actually were not in a position to make a deal. They did not have the authority to make a deal. And so this negotiation ended in part because it's not clear that they would ever have been able to make a deal. The line is harder than, I mean, 20 year enrichment, enrichment. We are now claiming that we will not consider a deal with Iran until Iran agrees to give us all of its uranium, enriched at 1%, enriched at 3%, enriched at 60%, enriched at 200%, all of it. The dust to be kept at Mar a Lago in the basement with the files. Right, okay, so that's. So in fact, the negotiations were harder. Our line was harder than this. And it does call into question the whole idea that we were negotiating on the basis of allowing the Iranians the face saving. Right. At some point to enrich uranium. Vance said Trump wants Iran to be a normal country with a normal economy that will help its people, but not one that will ever have a nuclear weapon. Therefore, 20 years is 100 years or a thousand years. And so I think this, we can, like, try to figure out why somebody is retelling this story, that we put this on the table. Maybe we put it on the table facetiously at some point. Like, well, what if we said 20 years? Would that help you? Or something like that? You know, like, not really, but in the way that people, you know, throw things around. But again, we only have one source, a single source, and it's obviously the same source. Eliana, do you agree with me that it's the same source? If you literally have three different things saying a official, an official, not even a current official, an administration official, an intelligence official, a, a diplomatic official, an official.

[D]

It's kind of like I'm going to butcher this analogy, but, you know, with Eric Swalwell, and I know we're going to get there, you know, they never just do it once. There's always a trail of, you know, women, a trail of wreckage.

[A]

So how are the Mullers like Eric Swalwell? This is a perfect blending of today's show. Go ahead.

[D]

Not that I'm talking about when officials are speaking on deep background to reporters, typically you're not special. They're talking to many reporters. And so I think you're right in that when store, when stories refer to a single official, it's. It's probably the same official. It's the same person going around talking to lots and lots of people. And there are a group of people, you know, there are particular people in the administration who like to talk to reporters. It is a skill dealing with reporters, dealing with the press. And I will say the people I've found who are, you know, successful in government service learn this skill. They learn how to deal with the press at the highest levels. You know, principles who are successful are typically very good at this. The other thing I would say is I just think there's so much we don't know. I do not think we've gotten an accurate accounting in the press of what happened in that room. And so much of the reporting and chatter is total and utter speculation, including what the principals are saying on television. I think a lot of it is information warfare and deception on both sides of this. And so I'm hesitant to say this is true, this isn't true. I just think we really, really don't know. And yes, it's our jobs to BS about this, you know, on here, but, but I really do think when we are negotiating with a country whose specialty is this type of information warfare and where there are people across the world who are combatants in the game of this type of information warfare, we just really don't know yet what's happening in these negotiations and we don't know yet how successful this blockade is and what impact it will have on them.

[A]

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[C]

I want to add just quickly to that. First of all, Eliana makes a really important point, which is that certain people are good with dealing with media and those people get, those people are, you know, routine leakers. And so you're seeing, you know, you can have the story of an administration of a presidency constructed in front of you by, by just a handful of people or even fewer. And you don't always know who they align with, the public, who's reading the stories. They, they don't know who, who these people are aligned with factionally on the inside. And so, you know, you have to like the people who are good at it. They do it. The other thing is that on the information warfare thing, once upon a time you had these types of negotiations and the leaking would come from within the room somewhere. But now you don't even necessarily have the country that is negotiating being the source of the information war. One of the countries know what the Qataris are doing. We don't know what the Chinese are doing. First of all, to amplify that stuff

[A]

and whatever in these stories, there are several Iranian officials and one American official. So we, we know that there are Iranian officials who are talking to whoever it is that is reporting these stories out. More than one Iranian official, according to them, just one American official. And again, is that official in the room? I guess not because of the way the phrasing is handled. Is that official in the inner circle? We don't know. And what, ultimately you have to ask always, what is the purpose of a leak? What is being sought? Is this being sought to show that we were being reasonable and that the Iranians were being unreasonable? Or is some effort being made to intrude on the President's we will never negotiate over the possibility of a nuclear weapon. Is someone putting on the table that. Abe, go ahead.

[B]

Well, that's the part that I find so confusing. I mean, I'm basic basically with Eliana on the point that we don't know what went on in that room. And the leak, if it's a leak or the story, whatever it is, is confusing me in terms of who would want it out there to say what. Because on the one hand, it proposes that the administration is softer than zero tolerance on Iranian enrichment, but still harder than any previous American negotiation has gone in saying 20 years. So I don't. So I'm having a very hard time understanding like whose purpose would be satisfied by retelling a story that's in that Goldilocks zone.

[A]

The only thing I can come up with is that someone is attempting to hold out hope for a negotiated settlement in the Restrainer camp. We think that the JCPOA was a catastrophe and a nightmare. But if you're in the restrainer camp and you want this war to end and you want to make it thinkable that there is a way for this war to end now without any further conflict, by putting on the table the idea that the United States is taking seriously the prospect of a long term deal with the Iranians, that pushes its enrichment two decades into the future. You do so from the outside in with a leak like this that suggests that it was there all along. And it may have been there all along in this sense that maybe in the lead up to the negotiations or last week somebody wrote a position paper saying, let's do 20 years that doubles the JCPOA window. They still didn't, you know, the JCPOA didn't work, maybe, and we don't like it. But you know, it is 10 years since the JCPOA and the Iranians don't have a nuclear weapon. If we put it 20 years down the road, it'll be 2046 and who knows, we could be living on Mars and the Iranian regime could be gone and all of that. So this could be looked at as a way of trying to push an argument into the center of the poker table that wasn't really on the administration's plate or I'm. This is all a fantasy in my head and it was discussed at the table and I'm being foolish, but we obviously don't know. But I am very. I think it's weird that everybody, that the press was so eager to report on the basis of a single source that the United States adopted a position that is very much at odds with how the United States has been talking about this over the past two months. You think that they'd want more of a window onto how that decision was made? Who, why, why it was floated. Who is floating it like that? All we have is a single source saying 20 years was put on the table and the Iranians counted with five.

[B]

One.

[A]

We have to. That's where my skepticism arises.

[B]

Another weird thing about the story is that the Times coverage of it quotes Rob Malley, who was a Obama, Biden, Iran team guy whose security was compromised, apparently quotes Malley saying, yeah, this would be more than we got, than the JCPOA got. So I'm trying to think like,

[A]

who

[B]

benefits from the Malley endorsement of the Trump proposal?

[A]

Yeah, Tulsi Gabbard. But okay, let's just put that. Well, there you go. I mean, I'm just saying if you want to know who wants to say. I mean, I'm really, I'm not saying Tulsi Gabbard leaked. I'm really not. I'm saying that it is the people who don't like the war, didn't want the war in the first place and would like to see it over with, who have the incentive to say the United States is willing to come up with a way to end the war with some kind of an agreement with the mullahs where on paper we agree to X and they agree to X and then we can claim victory and get out. That's the only cui bono that I can see. And then, and then the Malleys of the world who are now saying it's a better deal than we got, can then also go, you thought the JCPOA was so terrible and here you are following us down exactly the same road. So, and Donald Trump, you stink and all of that. And you're all hypocrites, all of you people who thought this was also great, this war, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that's the other sort of, well, you know, point.

[D]

I didn't even get into the granular details of it because Iran's not going to make the deal. So fortunately we don't have to worry about any of this because Iran has already indicated it's not going to make a deal. It's not going to agree to give up its nuclear weapons. And I think the real challenge, as we all know, facing the administration is how effective is this blockade going to be? Are they going to need to do more? What impact is it going to have on the economy and what are they really going to need to do, which is probably not going to happen across, sitting across from the negotiating table in Islamabad to bring Iran to heel. That is the real challenge.

[A]

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Which again I'm not sure is the worst thing in the world. Like how I assume the American blockade should kind of be a little porous since we don't actually want to blockade international waters and that we're largely trying to choke off any Iranian access to international oil markets. But I don't know. And some weird stuff is surely going on behind the scenes between President Trump and Xi of China. They're meeting in three weeks. China is really the only card or sort of ally that Iran has left to sort of help it internationally. Putin also, but Putin has his own troubles with the war and Ukraine taking a terrible turn against Russia. And so we don't know what's going on there either. In terms of the grand game between the United States and China and whether China really wants a confrontation point on the question of maritime trade and shipping with the United States relating to the war in Iran, they depend on that shipping more than we do, particularly where oil is concerned, vastly more than we do. They have no domestic energy in China. So, you know, assuming a terrible collapse of the international system, we can kind of manage our own, and they get choked off. So in that sense, in the grand game, we have the cards, and China doesn't have that many cards and will want to be more accommodating to us if. If push comes to shove. But again, this is just all wildly speculative. So why don't we get off the wildly speculative and move to the absolutely delicious, which, of course, is the resignation of Eric Swalwell, seriatim first from his gubernatorial campaign and then from Congress. So Swalwell represents the latest in the line of people who came to prominence by attacking Donald Trump and getting blown up before Trump does. I'm trying to go back. I mean, aside from the obvious Michael Avenatti who ends up in prison because he steals money from Stormy Daniels and a couple of other people whom he's representing. And remember people even talking about Avenatti running for president because he was so great in facing Trump. I mean, there are others I can't remember, I mean, aside from the Republican senators that he targeted and took down,

[B]

but Cuomo at the time.

[A]

Right. I mean, you know, it's not. You know, it's bad karma, apparently. You would think it was good karma to sort of, like, be Trump's enemy, because Trump is so compromised, but apparently not. And, boy, these stories are really gross about Swalwell. I mean, we'd all heard that he was like a. A horn dog, you know, and he'd had this affair with this Chinese agent and stuff like that. I mean, that's like six years old already or seven or eight years old already. And then he lives with this woman and this Billionaire. And, you know, and he's married, and,

[D]

you know, he's got three young children. I should note that two of these women have now gone identified themselves and done an interview with CBS News this morning. I. I had not known their identities, but they have, they've come forward. They're talking about the allegations. One of the women you used to work for, Swalwell and accuses him of sexual assault, one of which I believe took place at the time she was working for him. The other one took place after she worked for him. But the allegations are serious. There's also a video floating around of Swalwell on a bed with a woman who's been identified as an escort. And this man was on the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees. The other allegations swirling around him involve his sending of compromised naked pictures. So it's amazing. And Nancy Pelosi, who tapped him to be a House manager for the second impeachment of Trump, knifed him, you know, and said he should resign in short order. That when you're dealing with these sorts of issues, you shouldn't be dealing with it as a lawmaker. But it is an interesting development. You know, we saw Robert Menendez, like, ride the ride the whole scandal out in office that no longer are. And actually, the contrast with Tony Gonzalez is interesting. Like, Swalwell was not able to ride this out while any kind of process, you know, goes forward. He was just forced to resign. Like his colleague saying, well, you know, there's a criminal investigation proceeding and the House Ethics Committee is looking into this was not sufficient. He just had to go. And we should also talk about Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego.

[C]

I was just gonna say that that

[D]

whole 2028 candidate who was Swalwell's roommate, his very close friend, the manager of Swalwell's presidential campaign, who attacked the women who were saying there are serious allegations that are going to drop, and has now said, oh, my gosh, I'm so blindsided by these allegations. Apparently, he was leading a double life that he so successfully managed to conceal from me while I was his roommate. And he tricked so many of us into believing that he was something he was not. Meanwhile, everybody in Washington is saying this was all an open secret. So Ruben Gallego, Arizona senator, who I do want to get to talking about some of the reporting the Free Beacon has done on you, served his wife with divorce papers when she was nine months pregnant, unwillingly, and tried to get her to pay for his lawyers in the divorce proceeding. Must be the deafest, dumbest, stupidest person in Washington. If he was blindsided into believing Eric Swalwell was something he was not, you

[C]

mentioned why the, that's why the process thing didn't, didn't make a difference for Swalwell, like, let the process play out because they all knew that he's, I mean, in their minds he's guilty because this was an open secret. And that's why the Gallego thing is a bigger story, I think then people are giving it, you know, attention now because he's obviously, I mean, he's been very clear about testing the presidential waters, but also that race is going to be, you know, he is. He's going to have to confront the fact that Democrats had no patience for Swalwell's denials, and they're going to enjoy using Swalwell against Gallego against in 2028. So as long as he continues, I

[D]

don't think Democrats will have any interest in investigating Gallego. So that will be interesting to see.

[C]

But I think if they're up on

[D]

a, you know, media will have zero curiosity in pursuing this story. And the Swalwell allegations dropped when he became an irritant and a liability in a crowded governor's race in California. And they all came out at the time, same, same time. This was not a feat of investigative reporting. It was a coordinated opposition dump, which is fine. I'm glad that it happened. But with Gallego, who the party sees as an asset and not a liability, I speak from experience. The Free Beacon sued to unseal divorce records of Gallegos that were concealed. Their existence was concealed. Even on the docket. He did not want these to be seen. The media's lack of curiosity around that was unbelievable. And then when they revealed that, okay, the guy served his, you know, nine months pregnant wife with divorce papers, tried to get her to pay his legal fees, he lied about when he got married, he got married legally and then announced that he was engaged several months later. There has been zero curiosity about what are obvious inconsistencies in Gallego's public story from the mainstream press. And in fact, it was covered by the press. As you know, Free Beacon's quest for records reveals nothing. There's nothing in these records. And so my suspicion is that that will continue.

[C]

Okay, but don't you think opponents in the race will want to leak oppo? Don't you think that part of it? If he gets in the way, why wouldn't his opponents do to Gallego what Swalwell's opponents did to Swalwell? That's my question.

[D]

It's possible. I my suspicion is that it will be the Washington Free Beacon out front covering this guy, but maybe not. I hope to be surprised.

[A]

It's not that they'll cover it. I do think Seth is right that if there's a reason, if Gallego gets purchased in the race or something like that, and there are 15 people on the debate stage, somebody is going to throw Swalwell in his face on a debate stage in late 2027 if he should. If it should. If it should come to that. And they will use the Washington Free Beacons reporting even though they don't want to. They don't want to use the Free Beacons reporting, but they will.

[D]

There's more to the Gigego story that has not been reported that there is no curiosity in the press to investigate.

[A]

Right. Okay. Well, you mentioned. Oh, go ahead. Well, I just want to say my

[B]

what my overarching takeaway from this is that Swalwell should have disappeared from public life when it was revealed that he was the target of a Chinese honey trap. I mean, how on earth do you hold on to your position in government

[D]

after that on the Intelligence Committee?

[B]

It's absolutely ludicrous. And it also tells me, which is very frightening, that Chinese spies and Chinese intelligence, they do their homework and they study and know their targets. Clearly this is a weakness of Swalwell's and they went after it.

[E]

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[A]

You mentioned Tony Gonzalez, Republican from Texas, who also resigned yesterday. And there were talks about how the barnacles or the difficulties for leadership in the House on the Republican and the Senate side in terms of personal scandals, that this was presented an opportunity to Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to kind of clear the decks that maybe if they could get several problematic figures in the House to quit at the same time, kind of like two by two, two Republicans and two Democrats, thus leaving everything equal, this would be of benefit to them because these are burrs in their saddle. They're obviously people that the leadership does not want to have to deal with that raise difficult questions for them. If they're asked at a daily press briefing or something like that, they don't want them there. Names of a couple of others that are still being floated. But stuff like this starts to have a life of its own. Me, too, had died or was supposedly dying, having taken a huge bite out of the entertainment industry, as it did, and a little bit out of politics, but far less than people think that it did. And there are 535 elected members of Congress and thousands of public officials elected public officials in the United States. And a lot of them are human garbage and behave in disgusting ways. And somehow they have alluded to a lot of the moral. I don't know, reckonings that actually others have had to deal with for reasons that elude some understanding. Some of it is this obvious lack of curiosity that Eliana points out, or the holy s. Moment when it occurred to Democrats and to liberals in 2017 that the entire effort of opening up MeToo stuff, which was to get at Trump, ended up destroying the head of cbs, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, this one, that one, the other one, and never Al Franken, who didn't even touch the woman that he had to resign from the Senate for having taken a kind of slightly gross photo of. And he, like, took one for the team to try to help the Democrats. And I think deeply regrets having done it now, since he's one of the

[D]

few people they're still bitter about it.

[A]

He should be. He should be. That's my point.

[C]

Which hurt Gillibrand, too, because Gillibrand, Kirsten Gillibrand, who. Who made me. To one of, you know, her thing. And she, you know, she was instrumental in making sure that people like Al Franken didn't hang around because they didn't want to seem like hypocrites. They wanted the upper hand. They wanted the. The moral high ground. But it turned out that Kirsten Gillibrand lost donors after that because the party backers were furious that, you know, Franken was. They felt that Franken was being put in a category of people that he didn't belong in. I mean, so shaft the person. She was. She was kind of cleared out of, you know, out of the, you know, the core of. Of the party. Quick.

[A]

Right. Okay. So my point is that it kind of came to a crashing halt politically because it turned out not to serve its purpose. And then there was all this cultural collateral damage you know, Woody Allen, you know, like there's a. Just give you a weird example because it's on my. It's in my mind and, and like, it's no point to going into this, but it's fascinating. The most influential or popular movie podcast is called the Big Picture. It's done by the ringer. The ringer did the 25 top movies of the 21st century or something like that. And on that list of top movies of the 21st century and in their coverage of movies generally over the last 10 years, the name Woody Allen is never mentioned. Woody Allen is the leading American filmmaker of the last half century by almost any reckoning in terms of awards and this productivity and all of that. He hasn't even been credibly accused of any crime or the one proceeding that was taken against him in terms of custody back in the 90s. Mia Farrow didn't win. So he's been married to the woman that he created the moral crisis with for 35 years. The world of Me Too ism, culturally still is very potent and allows people to be non personed. But not in politics, where arguably it's the only place where it actually should matter. Who cares how a movie director acts or how a writer acts or whatever? But these people are elected to be our representatives and they behave badly. And as I say, there are thousands of them. And the whole subject came to a thudding halt. Well, apparently not anymore. And that's why I think a Pandora's box has been opened here. TMZ has now announced with great fanfare that it's opening a D.C. bureau. What purpose could that possibly serve? They want to get goods on members of Congress or political figures who are involved in hanky panky, and that's what they do.

[C]

And they break stories just because they people. There's a certain attitude toward TMZ which is like, oh, like, you know, like it's some sort of like, you know, like the, what was it, the National Enquirer or something? The supermarket tabloid that had like Alien, the Alien Baby on its cover. TMZ breaks stories and gets stories, right? So whatever the methods are, they're going to find stuff, right?

[A]

And TMZ pays for stories. So that adds a new wrinkle to the Washington reporting world in which, generally speaking, you leaked for all sorts of other reasons. Well, what if TMZ is willing to give you $100,000 to say that Senator X, who's the chairman of Y Committee, threw you on a bed in a hotel room and locked the door and wouldn't let you out until you did what he wanted you to do.

[B]

Here's my theory about why they may be coming for the politicians as opposed to solely entertainment figures for these infractions. Now, because politics has become more wholly entertainment, it is now subsumed under the entertainment tent. So politicians have made themselves targets of the entertainment media in a way that they didn't used to be. They have podcasts and appearances and do all sorts of media things that they didn't use to do.

[D]

And Swalwell's the perfect example of that.

[A]

Yep. And he weirdly crosses these streams. Right. Because he's a California congressman. He hangs out in showbiz circles. He's a favorite of Jimmy Kimmel's. He's really. I mean, I don't know whether you would do. Whether I think he's good looking or not is immaterial. He's got a sort of, like, hunky vibe. He's, you know, show busy. And he made, you know, John, kind

[D]

of hard to assess that after seeing the video of him on the bed with the.

[A]

I totally agree with you, whoever. You take people at their lowest. You take people at their lowest. But it's. All I'm saying is that, is that MeToo was actually started as a. As a method of extra political assault to get somebody who couldn't be gotten at the ballot box. It ended up turning on its own and eating its own culturally and then kind of going away. Replaced in part by Black Lives Matter, which used a lot of the same techniques to nail people and get them out of businesses and out of jobs simply by claiming that they had not been allied enough with the allyship and the alliance of allies to ally them and therefore needed to be thrown out of their jobs in theater and in show business and indeed even in politics. But if you start in a world in which congressmen are sanctioned and forced to leave office for problematic sexual behavior, that's kind of a new thing. There was kind of an unspoken compact for decades, if not centuries, actually, that not only weren't you supposed to do that because don't gore his ox or he'll gore yours. This is also true of ethics in general. The one job you didn't want if you were a member of Congress was to be on the House Ethics Committee because somebody said, oh, my God, Congressman so and so just stole $50,000 from a safe. And then you're like, yeah, but, you know, the vice. But the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, he also stole 50,000 from a safe. And we really need to get the Appropriations Bill to the floor. So we really don't want to bring that up right now. And do you really want to bring that up right now? And let's let everything lie. You know, it's like being Internal affairs in a police department or something like that. But when it all gets exposed to sunlight, everybody runs for the. Everyone runs to safe quarters, which isn't burying stories, it's getting ahead of stories. It's like saying, yeah, this one should go, too, and that one should go, too, because you don't want to be tagged with the idea that you knew and said nothing. That's the Gallego problem now, which is now the question is, how deep does this go? How much did he know? And is he going to be discredited for his behavior?

[D]

I think Gallego dug his own grave because he came to the guy's defense proactively and said, this is ridiculous. Nothing happened. He didn't need to do that. And I actually think his bigger problem is going to be his own conduct, if people actually take the time to investigate that. But, yes, he idiotically decided to dig his own grave, knowing we all know full well what the guy's character and conduct actually was. And I think we should probably distinguish between, like, consensual affairs between adults, which I kind of think is what you're talking about, John. And a guy on the Intelligence Committee sending naked pictures of himself that he probably wouldn't want to see on the front page of the New York Times and sleeping with a Chinese spy and taking advantage of young women on his staff. Like, that does seem to me next level. And if we did go after every member of Congress and boot the ones who were doing that, that would be. Be okay with me.

[A]

I'm not saying it's not okay with me. I'm saying that it's an alteration in the political dynamic in the United States and it cannot just because, look, we've seen. We saw Mario Cuomo have to. Andrew Cuomo have to resign over comparable allegations.

[D]

Those allegations were like.

[A]

And they were so tepid compared to this. That's my point, is that they were tepid. But there was another reason for him to go. He was, in part, being gotten because he was guilty of other stuff that Democrats could not countenance, in my view. And they didn't know how to go at him because he was scary and very vindictive. And they went with the one thing that he had no antibodies against, which wasn't like, oh, you killed thousands of people in nursing homes with your psychotic policy on Covid, it was you said sweetheart to a 24 year old on your staff. And you're not allowed to do that. For that, you have to resign from office for policies leading to the deaths of old people. You can survive and probably get reelected. That's where things were. So. And look, Matt Gaetz survived two years of an investigation into, into allegations about his personal conduct that are apparently undeniably true. But like that come pushing up against certain statute of limitations rules in the states in which he was alleged to have made the mistakes or done the things that he did, it was possible to stick it out. Swalwell flew too close to the sun in some sense, which is like a guy in his position probably shouldn't be running for, for governor of California like that.

[D]

That's what I can't wrap my head around is the. How do you get, when you have three young children, how do you put yourself in this position? How do you close your eyes at night and actually fall asleep knowing that there are all these women out there and all these pictures out there that any day could drop on your head? Like, just as a human experience, it is really hard to understand.

[A]

Well, I mean, you know, it's why Balzac wrote 37 novels on precisely this question of why socially prominent people never know that they're going to get nailed for their misbehavior. And that was as true in 1830s Paris as it is in 2000s Washington. I just think that weirdly enough, despite the fact that the press doesn't want to pay attention, despite the fact that it wants to ignore the kinds of things that are the bread and butter of the Washington Free Beacon? This door is opening more than a crack, and we just don't know where it leads. Did we think that, you know, Harvey Weinstein was going to end up in prison for the rest of his life in 2017 when the first story that came out was that Louis CK Masturbated into a plant? I don't think so. I don't think that's where my mind was going. Even though I knew that Harvey Weinstein was a serial abuser of women. And I didn't even know Harvey Weinstein. I just live in New York and I know people who work in show business. And that's another case in which everybody knew, but nobody really knew. I'm just saying now I don't know, you know, where this is going to go. But watch this. Watch this space, I guess, because it could be pretty interesting. We should probably close by saying that something historic is happening today in D.C. today and tomorrow in D.C. which is that the Israelis and Israel government of Israel and the government of Lebanon are having a direct negotiation mediated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. This is the first direct face to face Arab country, Israeli negotiation, I believe, since Jordan, since the Israelis and Jordan came to their cold peace at least half a century ago. And maybe the first time that the Israelis and the Lebanese have ever sat down together and not have had third parties negotiate deals. And what's interesting, of course, is that the Lebanese government has told Hezbollah, which is actually a part of the governing coalition that runs Lebanon, that they don't. Iran, they want Iran to stay out of it. Iran has no place and saying that anything that's going on between Iran, the United States and Israel has any place in this negotiation. Clearly the Lebanese are hoping that the Israelis actually do the job that they are supposed to be doing under treaty, which is clearing out Hezbollah so that it doesn't attack Israel and therefore leaving Lebanese sovereignty and its land unmolested by Israeli strikes that are necessary to mow the lawn to keep Hezbollah far away from the north of Israel. It's a very big deal that these negotiations are taking place. So much else is going on in the world that it's really hard to, really hard even to focus on it. Obviously we're not focused on it because we're not even talking about it that loudly, nor are the Israelis, nor the Lebanese, nor is Marco Rubio. But it's a very significant moment in the tectonic plates shifting in the Middle east, which really are shifting. Israel essentially in an alliance with Saudi Arabia. The United States and Israel fighting a war together as allies. Iran isolated and attacking Qatar and the UAE and Saudi Arabia. And just everything is moving and worth

[C]

noting that none of this happens if the US Isn't doing what it's doing, that when people talk about America facilitating negotiations to try diplomacy, why don't we try diplomacy? This is how you facilitate diplomacy. America doesn't take a step back from the Middle east, takes a step forward into the fray, says, let's clean these, let's clean this stuff, let's solve these problems. We're going to be involved and we're going to make people pay and we're going to reward our friends and punish our enemies. And, and suddenly people line up on both sides of that ledger, who are the friends, who are the enemies and whatever, but nobody, especially a weak, you know, a generally weak central government like Lebanon would be doing this. If they didn't feel like the American administration was wholly behind what they are doing and they believed that they would, it was more likely than not that they were lining up with the strong horse. If they felt like the US And Israel were going to pull the rug out from under them, they would never step out on a. Sorry to mix my metaphors, but they would never step out this. That far on. This is. This is a vision.

[A]

What? They would never step out this far on a strong horse is what you're saying.

[C]

That's right.

[A]

They would never.

[C]

Yeah, they would never. They would never switch rugs midstream. But, yeah, this is just a reminder of what America is capable of when it wants to affect change.

[A]

We should talk also about the controversy involving the President and the Pope and the illustration of Trump as Jesus, but actually, he's really a doctor, and I guess he needed his readers because he didn't look at the picture closely enough because he needs glasses and wasn't wearing his glasses or something like that. After four Cardinals went on 60 Minutes with Norah O' Donnell and said that Trump was egregious and they weren't afraid of him and this war is an abomination and all of that, which is apparently What Trump watching 60 Minutes. What set Trump off on his tweet saying, I'm sorry to laugh because it's not funny, but it is funny that Pope Leo is soft on crime. I. That's just. Was a funny angle. I mean, obviously he's not going to attack him for, you know, like, not accepting the Athanasian Creed and accepting the Nicene Creed or something like that. Or, you know, there's a. There's a moment allowing, you know, Pope Clement not allowing Henry VIII to divorce. So he's gotta say soft on crime.

[C]

There's a moment in the office where Dwight is fighting with Michael Scott and Dwight says to him, you have no land, you own no land. That's what this feels like, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You have no cards. How many divisions does the Pope have? It's not funny. He's the most important clerical figure on the planet Earth, and the President of the United States should not be slapping him down. It's not right and it's not proper and all of that, but, like, we're so far beyond proper, right, Abe? I don't know.

[B]

Yeah, I think there's a couple of interesting things about it. I mean. Yeah, first of all, I agree. Obviously, I don't think the President should mock any religion, refrain from mocking any holy figures at all. I do have to say that I think under different circumstances, were this not about Trump having a rhetorical war with the Pope. Some, not all, some of the people who are outraged by this image that he posted would thrill to. That image under other circumstances, if it were about Trump's fight with some Democrat who's anti religion or something, and Trump presented himself as the embodiment of Jesus who's restoring religion. I'm making it up, but I'm just saying there would be that kind of like, Trump is Superman kind of thrill among some of the people. But I also think it's interesting to me because it shows how little Trump seems to care about the modern intra Christian wars, too. I mean, this is a moment where he's got the podcast sphere hinting that he's the Antichrist, you know, and he just goes right in, dives right in with this, with this offensive image. And I'm sitting here wondering, okay, how are they going to drag the Jews in Israel into this one?

[C]

And we can say it's not funny, but I thought it was me as a doctor is very hard not to laugh at. As unfunny as the bigger picture is the president then saying, I thought it was me depicted as a doctor while he's in his savior's garb is also like, there's a game being played here where it's like, no, you didn't actually think it was you in a Red Cross uniform. But it's like people are so happy to accept. Maybe Trump really did think that he was wearing a Red Cross uniform.

[A]

I'm serious when I say that he may not have had his readers on. He's 80 years old. Every 80 year old has glasses. I don't know an 80 year old who doesn't have corrective lenses. He doesn't wear them. Clearly, a lot of the time he's never been photographed wearing them. There's no way that he doesn't need them or he doesn't have, like, as I say, readers you buy in the drugstore. Didn't have them on, so it was blurry. So he didn't see the image. Right. By the way, I'm not defending it. No, no, no, really not. I just, I just think that you're right. But I mean, Trump isn't. Yeah.

[B]

Also, how familiar is. Is he with religious imagery?

[A]

Well, come on, is he familiar with, with a figure floating over a bed, like, laying his hands on somebody's head with the heavenly chorus behind him? But I mean, you know, he's been in a bodega he's seen the picture of Jesus Christ hanging behind the head of the person in a bodega. Like, I don't really think it's a sophisticated. You need, like, an art history degree in Netherlandish, Medieval, Netherlandish portraiture to understand what that was a depiction of. He just thought it was cool that he looked so savior ish. But, I mean, I think in the end, the point is that no matter, even if we spend weeks praising Trump's behavior on the war, whatever his constancy, his philo Semitism, his support for Israel and all that, he's still an egregious person. He is an egregious person. There's just no way around it. You can't say, well, he's transcended his egregiousness because he doesn't let you. He won't let you say, my God, he's really stepped into another realm with this war in which he's shown a seriousness of purpose that will mark him as a significant world leader setting the agenda for the 21st century, when not only does he do this thing with the Pope and all of that, but then this anguished tweet from this remarkable young woman, Riley Gaines, the athlete, the female athlete, who is really the leading figure in the fight that Trump himself has engaged in to say that males, biological males, should not be allowed to participate competitively in women's sports. She is as significant a figure in that movement that, as I say, he used in 2024 as part of his campaign. She anguishedly says, I love President Trump, but this image is so. I can't believe he meant it or something like that. And then he attacks Riley Gaines. He says, riley Gaines, I don't like her. Frankly, I've never liked her. Who the hell is she? I think that more than even attacking the Pope was sort of like, are you. Why would you attack Riley Gaines, who like, like, wrote a sort of heartbroken, I know you didn't mean it because you're so wonderful thing. And he's like, the hell with you. You know what men should play in women's sports? I don't know. That's why I say, like, he's beyond. It's not that he's beyond criticism. He's totally within the bounds of criticism. He is beyond reproach. Not in the way that we use the term beyond reproach. Metaphorically, he is impossible to reproach

[B]

because

[A]

reproaching has no effect on him. You know, there is no reproach that has any power to contain him.

[C]

The joke used to be, today is the day that Trump became president, you know, on his behavioral changes. Now the joke should be, today is the day Trump became Pope. Look, because everybody's always hoping for the growing in office. And this is a perfect example of, like, you know, his supporters being like, wow, that was too far. But we will handle him as gently as humanly possible. And he came down like an acme anvil on their heads.

[A]

Look, the funniest thing that anybody has suggested in the last 24 hours is that there is a guy. You know how we keep saying someone's gonna come out of nowhere to run in 2020? Because that seems to be how people win. Like, Obama came out of nowhere. Trump came out of nowhere, whatever. So there's a guy from Chicago named Robert Prevost, and he's been out of the country, but he could declare for president and run and win. He's also known as Pope Leo. Robert Prevost, White Sox fan, you know, Villanova graduate, American citizen. And, you know, we know from Marco Rubio that a person can have two very significant jobs at the same time or more. Rubio's national Security advisor and Secretary of State and head of USAID and the national archivist. So Prevost or Pope Leo would have to be pope and president at the same time. Could he do it? Who says he can't? Got a whole college of Cardinals to help him on one side, and he's got a cabinet to help him on the other.

[C]

Do we really want another Chicago machine politician?

[A]

Well, there you go. But the Chicago machine, at least, you know, was effective and could get things done.

[C]

He'll have a daily as a chief of staff. Right? One of the dailies will be a chief of staff.

[A]

Yeah. They fix potholes, they build subway. They build, like, lines to o' Hare in three years that don't have the same problems that they have in other cities with infrastructure in Chicago. I'm very, very high on this idea. If he thinks that Trump is so terrible and the Republican warmongering is so awful and all of that, let him throw his literal, most important hat in the world into the ring. I can't remember what the papal hat is called, but I'm just telling you, that's one hell of a hat to throw in the ring. Crevos 28. And then he's got. J.D. vance is saying there, how does J.D. vance run against his holy Father now that he has converted to Catholicism? I mean, he's like, that's a just just a. That's just like a layup for the democrats. That's all I'm saying. Just keep this under in consideration. As Tom Hagen would say, do me a favor. Take it under consideration. This is business, and everybody's taking it very personal. We'll be back tomorrow for Seth, Abe and eliana and John podora T. Keep the candle burn.