'Chaos caucus’: Republicans called out by fellow lawmaker over impeachment talk
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Ca.) on Wednesday slammed House Republicans, who he characterized as a “chaos caucus” amid the growing momentum within the GOP for an impeachment inquiry.
The California Democrat who served as a manager in Donald Trump’s second impeachment made the comments during an appearance on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut with Joy Reid.”
Swalwell was responding to Reid’s suggestion that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Ca.) pressuring fellow Republicans to vote in favor of impeaching Joe Biden without evidence of wrongdoing “puts his more vulnerable members who are in districts that Biden won in jeopardy.”
“They’re a chaos caucus now and he's asking them to vote for more and more chaos and it gives us I think, a nice frame – if we take it when we do it – to say you know what? We’re the competence caucus,” Swalwell said.
Swalwell cited the Philadelphia bridge collapse that was repaired ahead of schedule under Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro.
“Everyone said it was going to take a year to get done. Two weeks. We got that done. So you guys can focus on the chaos, we’ll deliver competence, and if we keep doing that, I think competence wins,” Swalwell said.
Asked if he thought by impeaching Biden Republicans could achieve their goal of muddying the waters to lessen public perception over the severity of crimes allegedly committed by Trump, Swalwell acknowledged that was possible if Democrats let them.
“If we play on our side of the field, it's going to hurt Biden,” Swalwell said.
“That's why I really want us to be on offense as much as possible,” Swalwell said, suggesting fellow Democrats be more proactive.
“I call it the 3-D approach, which is every hearing, we discredit them, we defend were necessarily, but we don’t have to defend everything because then you can't tell the difference between both sides. And then third, always, always, always pivot to what we will deliver.”