At Wednesday's House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) joked that Rep. Jeff Van Drew's (R-NJ) "silence" meant he agreed with Democrats on a host of issues.
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00:00Five minutes. Mr. Chairman, I'm thrilled to see that Mr. Van Drew is here because I think he is
00:07one of the honest debaters on your side who is engaged with us on a lot of spirited debates.
00:13And so I wanted to ask Mr. Van Drew because earlier he did not speak when we put an amendment
00:19forward that said you can't deport an American citizen and you guys voted to allow it. Mr. Van
00:25Drew, I know you think that's wrong. And if you want to be silent, I'm going to take your silence as you
00:31agreeing with me that that's wrong. Okay. So Mr. Van Drew is silent. I'm going to check it off that he
00:41agrees that deporting U.S. citizens is wrong. The chair will note that the gentleman did respond.
00:47I yield to you, Mr. Van Drew. Go ahead. The gentleman did not seek recognition. Okay. So Mr. Van Drew,
00:52we also discussed and had an amendment that said firing veterans is wrong and you shouldn't do
00:59that. And you didn't speak up then. And I'm going to take your silence now as you agree firing veterans
01:04is wrong. So I'm going to put a check next to Mr. Van Drew being with us on that. We just talked about
01:10January 6 rioters not joining the Department of Homeland Security. And Mr. Van Drew, you're a good
01:16person. You're a dentist in your community. You stand with law enforcement. So you have not
01:22spoken up. So I'm going to take your silence to mean you agree with us that we should not hire
01:26January 6 rioters in the Department of Homeland Security. And Mr. Van Drew, we also said that it's
01:32probably wrong to deport a four-year-old with cancer who's a U.S. citizen. And you didn't say
01:37anything. But again, I think you're a good person. So I'm going to take your silence to mean, Mr.
01:43Van Drew, that you agree with us that that is also wrong. And I'd yield to anyone else
01:48who has questions for Mr. Van Drew. I yield back. The gentleman yields.