# Eric Swalwell Flew Too Close to the Sun Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/free-thinking-through-the-fourth-turning-with-sasha-stone-5501501/eric-swalwell-flew-too-close-to-the-sun Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/free-thinking-through-the-fourth-turning-with-sasha-stone-5501501/eric-swalwell-flew-too-close-to-the-sun.md Podcast: [Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone](https://stenobird.com/podcast/free-thinking-through-the-fourth-turning-with-sasha-stone-5501501) Published: 2026-04-18T06:08:54+00:00 Episode link: https://www.sashastone.com/p/eric-swalwell-flew-too-close-to-the Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/194139662/84a9e584ee1739357490819002908bc4.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/free-thinking-through-the-fourth-turning-with-sasha-stone-5501501/episodes/eric-swalwell-flew-too-close-to-the-sun Duration seconds: 2290 ## Resource Eric Swalwell’s gubernatorial campaign was a ticking time bomb, and the Democrats knew it. They’ve denied it, but come on, are we really supposed to believe that a story that was kicking around in 2019 and set to break in Politico did not reach the ears of Nancy Pelosi? The question isn’t whether they knew, but why they did nothing about it and essentially let Swalwell loose upon the world with access to Snapchat and hotel rooms. Swalwell was one of Pelosi’s protoges, a foot soldier for the party bosses who decided Donald Trump should never lead this country, no matter the election outcome. They convicted him on Inauguration Day, then spent the next four years finding the crime. The biggest and most embarrassing of these was Russiagate, where Swalwell played a starring role. They knew Trump would not be removed from office, but they decided to wait out the clock, waste his time and ours, with a phony scandal that, to this day, has never been adequately addressed by legacy media or the Democrats. They just moved on to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, and all the while, there was Swalwell doing everything right. There he was on Impeachment Number 2, saying all the things, drawing all of the conclusions, pushing all of the hysteria. For his efforts, Swalwell was beloved by celebrities like Robert De Niro, late-night comics like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert. For a time, he was like Icarus, soaring as one of the Democrats’ shining stars. No wonder he thought he should be next in line to lead California now that Gavin Newsom is running for president. All that’s required of him is that he be someone who can take on Trump. But Icarus flamed out. In the past week, we watched a political hit that has to be among the cleanest and most efficient on record.… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/free-thinking-through-the-fourth-turning-with-sasha-stone-5501501/episodes/eric-swalwell-flew-too-close-to-the-sun/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/free-thinking-through-the-fourth-turning-with-sasha-stone-5501501/eric-swalwell-flew-too-close-to-the-sun.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.