Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) appeared on Friday’s Deadline: White House to discuss an absolutely despicable voicemail he received from a man who said he’s a viewer of Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News. Swalwell tweeted the uncensored message on Thursday.
The man’s message is more than 90 seconds long and contains racist and homophobic epithets. He also called the congressman a “fucking bitch” and a “fucking pig.”
“I don’t want to amplify the threat, but I do want you to characterize how it was different,” Nicolle Wallace said to Swalwell. “In the arena, we all see a lot of this. But this felt different. Tell me why.”
“It did, Nicole. And we receive hundreds of threats. What was specific about this was the caller identified he had just been watching Tucker Carlson. Now, we get a lot of threats that come in as Tucker Carlson attacks me, but this person identified he had just heard from Tucker Carlson. He was now calling my office and then of course dropped a number of racist, sexist, homophobic epithets in the call, and then threatened to kill my entire family. And what is so frustrating about this, Nicolle, is that I have personally, eyeball to eyeball, asked Tucker Carlson not to lie about me on his show because of this effect.”
In the call the man said, “I hope these foreign
Wallace asked the congressman, “Do you have any doubt that Tucker Carlson knows the effect of his attacks on you?”
Swalwell was blunt:
Well, he knows it because I’ve conveyed it to him personally. And also as I said, I text messaged him when he asked me to come on his show. I told him, I’m not doing that anymore because when you lie about me on your show, your viewers follow up from those lies and they threaten my family. And so he knows the effects of his lies. I think he likes to do it. I think in a sick way he derives pleasure in knowing that his viewers will aim their threats at lawmakers and whoever he’s attacking that day. But as someone who’s been attacked himself and has faced death threats himself, I wish he would understand that that is no way to have a civil discourse in our country.
Later in the segment Swalwell said Carlson understands the implications of his words.
“He is someone of great intellect,” said the congressman. “We shouldn’t discount that. He knows what he’s doing, and that’s what makes it all the more disturbing, is that nothing has seemed to temper him
Watch above via MSNBC.