Swalwell Slams GOP ‘Act,’ Says Gaetz Used to Laugh at How ‘Stupid’ Trump Was
Rep. Eric Swalwell injected Matt Gaetz into Thursday’s House Judiciary hearing with former special counsel Jack Smith, arguing the GOP’s public Trump loyalty doesn’t match what members say off-camera.
Swalwell’s claim matters now because it lands as Republicans intensify attacks on Smith’s past Trump investigations with Democrats trying to turn the hearing into a credibility test for the accusers.
According to Mediaite’s published excerpt of Swalwell’s remarks on Jan. 22, 2026, Swalwell said Republicans privately call Trump “crooked,” “cruel,” and “a scumbag,” then added: “Everyone remembers Matt Gaetz coming over here after a committee hearing. He would laugh at how stupid he thought Trump was.”
The complication is that Swalwell is describing behind-the-scenes conversations that are hard to independently verify from the public record, even as the hearing itself is being framed as a fact-finding forum.
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“I’m proud of the work my team did, and I appreciate the opportunity to appear here today to correct false and misleading narratives about our work,” Smith said.
Reuters reported Smith told lawmakers the evidence showed Trump “willfully” broke laws in efforts to stay in power after the 2020 election, and the cases were dropped after Trump’s 2024 win because DOJ policy bars prosecuting a sitting president.
AP reported the hearing exposed sharp partisan division, with Republicans casting Smith as politically motivated and Democrats backing the investigations as grounded in law.
What happens next is likely more clip-driven fallout: Swalwell’s Gaetz line is already being treated as a new talking point in the larger fight over who’s being honest about Trump and who’s performing for the cameras
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