Swalwell Compares Trump to Bin Laden: He Has ‘Inspired and Radicalized People’ in the Same Way

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) compared President Donald Trump to the late Taliban terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in a Tuesday interview, saying they had both “radicalized” their supporters.

“Osama bin Laden did not enter U.S. soil on September 11, but it was widely acknowledged he was responsible for inspiring the attack on our country,” Swalwell said in the interview with PBS News host Judy Woodruff. “But the president, with his words, using the words ‘Fight,’ with the speakers that he assembled that day, who called for ‘trial by combat’ and said we have to take names and kick ass, that is hate speech that inspired and radicalized people to storm the Capitol.”

Swalwell was referencing a comment Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) made during a speech prior to the Jan. 6 unrest in Washington, D.C. about “taking down names and kicking ass,” as well as a speech by the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, in which Giuliani alluded to “trial by combat.”

Giuliani later said that he was attempting to reference a concept from Game of Thrones, a popular fictional series that aired on HBO, in referring to a “trial between [voting] machines.”

Woodruff asked Swalwell to confirm whether he was trying to compare Trump to bin Laden.

“I’m comparing the words of an individual who would incite and radicalize somebody, as Osama bin Laden did, to what president Trump did,” Swalwell replied. “You don’t actually have to commit the violence yourself, but if you call others to violence, that itself is a crime.”

Watch above via PBS.