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Dem Congressman Lifts Like A Teen, Challenges Gutfeld Anyway

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Greg Gutfeld
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Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) threw down the gauntlet on social media Wednesday, challenging Fox News host Greg Gutfeld to a public bench press face-off that would see the loser resign from their job.

Swalwell issued the challenge after Gutfeld took jabs at the congressman’s gym routine during a segment the night before.

“Here’s a deal for @Gutfeldfox. (Never heard of him til he spent 8 mins criticizing what I bench press),” Swalwell claimed on X.

“The deal: if tough guy benches more than me for 10 reps I’ll leave Congress. If not, he leaves Fox News,” he propositioned. “I’ll give Greg 48 hrs to accept, then I’m calling him GUTLESSfeld.”

Gutfeld had aired clips of Swalwell swimming, lifting weights, and tossing a baseball, highlighting a self-recorded video in which the Democrat narrated over his workout that he should be at work instead of working out.

“I should be working right now. I should be at the Capitol. I should be in a suit. Instead, Republicans sent us home because they would rather stand up for Donald Trump than release the Epstein files and stand up for victims,” Swalwell had said in the Sunday post.

“We could be in Washington, D.C., lowering your health care costs, lowering your grocery costs and restoring your rights. I should be working right now. Instead, I’m pumping iron at the gym.”

That gym session drew sharp ridicule online, with Gutfeld hilariously commenting, “With a bench press like that, no one will mind if you use the women’s locker room.”

The video showed Swalwell benching what appeared to be 135 pounds, a figure that quickly became fodder for criticism.

Commenters across social media seized on the relatively low weight, pointing out that it’s not impressive for a grown man in his early 40s.

Conservative commentator Paul Szypula wrote, “Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) does another cringe ‘I should be at work’ video, this one at the gym where he’s winded half-way through a set of light bench presses.”

“Democrats are trying to attract white male voters. Swalwell at the gym ‘pumping iron’ won’t help,” he added.

Talk show host Wendy Bell jumped in with, “That’s what I bench, Eric.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) responded with her own video from her home gym. In the clip, she challenged Swalwell to increase his weight.

“I just want Eric Swalwell to bench more than 135# and Democrats to stop lying,” she wrote. “Congress is always out of session in August no matter who is in charge.”

“And yes release the Epstein files but Democrats stop pretending like you suddenly care because you never cared about Epstein while you were in charge the last 4 years!!!” Greene went on.

Right-wing podcaster Eric Matheny added, “It’s not a flex for a 43-year-old man to bench press what a 14-year-old freshman football player does.”

“What is up with these phony attempts of masculinity? Do Swalwell and Tim Walz use the same PR guy?” he questioned.

Someone even asked X’s AI assistant Grok if Swalwell was lifting “a lot of weight for her size.”

“Assuming the video shows a standard 45 lb bar with one 45 lb plate per side (total 135 lbs), for Eric Swalwell—a 6’0″, 194 lb man—that’s novice-level bench press. Not impressive for his size, regardless of pronouns,” Grok replied.

The pile-on didn’t stop there. “I guess it’s better than pumping Chinese spies,” another user wrote, referring to Swalwell’s links to Christine Fang, an alleged Chinese spy who worked on his 2014 campaign and placed an intern in his office.

Swalwell was removed from the House Intelligence Committee in January 2023 by then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy over the controversy.

During a June interview with Charlamagne tha God, Swalwell was pressed on the incident.

“Did the Chinese spy scandal hurt your credibility?” the radio host asked. “Or did Republicans just weaponize, like, a nothingburger, so to speak?”

“You know, the fact that the FBI and the House Ethics Committee said it was bulls**t, like, I would hope that would be enough,” Swalwell replied. “But, like, in a disinformation society, like, I recognize that it’s everyone on the right’s favorite meme.”

“My wife tells me all the time, ‘You know what? The second they’re not going after you, you’re not effective,’” he added.

“And so I wear it as a badge of honor that these guys would want to lie about me all the time, because I think it means that I’m landing punches politically on them that sting.”

Swalwell also suggested that some Republicans view him as a traitor to his demographic.

“And frankly, I think a lot of Republicans look at me as like, ‘Oh, that’s a straight white Christian male, son of a cop — like, everyone else like him looks like me.’ So when he comes at me, it’s more betrayal to them.”

“I’m not going away,” he continued. “They can say what they want, and the death threats will come, but if they think I’m going to drop my lawsuit from January 6 against the president, or if I regret being an impeachment manager, or if I’m not going to go out and work my ass off to help us win the midterms, like, they’re wrong.”

“I came from nothing,” he continued. “I was raised by a cop who did the right thing. To me, I’m playing with the house’s money, so to speak. And so this is just a right-or-wrong mission for me.”

Charlamagne didn’t let Swalwell off easy when it came to Biden, either. “What was the Democrats’ excuse when they chose to be accomplices in the cover-up of Biden’s physical and mental decline? It’s the same thing.”

“Y’all got on television and pretended to act like everything was fine, knowing behind the scenes he was not the one,” he noted.

Swalwell denied having inside knowledge of Biden’s condition. “I didn’t spend much time” privately with the president, he said, and claimed many Democrats lacked “behind the scenes” access.

Swalwell shifted gears, saying Democrats need to focus on the future. “Because the past was rejected last November.”

Charlamagne followed up, “Why should we ever trust the Democratic Party after they lied to us [for] so long about President Biden?”

“I think that Democrats have tried every strategy except for two things, honesty and courage,” Charlamagne remarked.

“Yeah, well, there’s a lot of people who are courageous right now in the Democratic Party,” Swalwell replied.

“Our bread-and-butter issue, our ‘dance with the one that brought ya’ is healthcare. People have always trusted us on healthcare.”

Watch Swalwell’s full interview on “The Breakfast Club” here:

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