'Party of cop killers': Eric Swalwell scoffs at new GOP claim to be the 'party of law and order'

U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell swung at the Republican National Committee after its members, led by Chair Ronna McDaniel, Friday evening voted overwhelmingly to label the January 6 insurrection as "legitimate political debate."

As the California Democrat noted on MSNBC's "The Last Word," the GOP actually put out a tweet declaring itself the "party of law and order."

"If your neighbor came over and stepped on your porch holding a knife, a gun, a machete, and said that he wanted to talk I don't think you would call the police and say, 'You know what, we're going to settle this and have a 'legitimate political discourse.' You would say that this is a violent interaction. That's what happened that day," Swalwell said of January 6.

"And this party, by the way," he said of the GOP, "they tweeted earlier today, 'We are the party of law and order.' No, they are the party of cop killers, because that's who their former twice impeached president wants to pardon," Swalwell charged, after Trump last weekend said he thought the January 6 participants were being treated very "unfairly," and he dangled pardons for them all if he is re-elected to the White House.

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"We've got to make that clear that [Republicans] voted down $350 million in new police funding, that they continue to dishonor the police. They vote against the gold medals for the police officers who served that day. And we have to make that clear as we go to the ballot box but it's such a disgrace," Swalwell said. "It was a sham all along that they back the blue because they've not backed the blue. If anything, they bruise the blue, they bruise their egos, they bruise the honor of the blue, and right now I think that is more clear. "