Eric Swalwell Blames Top Republican For Inspiring Chilling Death Threats

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) firmly blamed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for inspiring multiple death threats against himself and his family.

“People parrot what Kevin McCarthy is saying when they call and make the threat,” Swalwell told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace on Wednesday’s broadcast of “Deadline: White House.”

McCarthy stripped Swalwell of his committee positions and called the California Democrat a “security threat” due to his link to a suspected Chinese spy. But Swalwell has never been implicated in any wrongdoing and the FBI has praised him for being “completely cooperative” with its investigation.

Swalwell said he’s told McCarthy and “publicly broadcast” that his rhetoric “leads to threats to me, my wife, our kids.”

“Recently someone said that they were going to rape and kill my children and they were using the language that Kevin McCarthy was using, so there is a cost to this,” he added.

But McCarthy “doesn’t care” and instead just “wants to focus on, you know, carrying out the vengeance that he has promised in this corrupt bargain” to win the speaker’s post, Swalwell continued. He said McCarthy “won’t even stop and talk to me when I have tried to talk to him.”