Rosie O’Donnell called the sexual misconduct allegations against former Rep. Eric Swalwell “heartbreaking,” comparing the disgraced California Democrat to former President Bill Clinton and concluding that “men suck.”
“Can we talk a little bit about Eric Swalwell?” Ms. O’Donnell said in a TikTok video posted Tuesday. “I know that guy. In the ’What kind of way?’ Like, spoke to him on the phone a couple times, donated money to him, I believe.”
The comedian, 64, said she had publicly praised Mr. Swalwell in the past, citing his family and his willingness to challenge colleagues over their conduct — a posture she now finds rankly hypocritical.
“And then all this comes out about him, and it’s heartbreaking to me,” she said. “And I wrote him. I wrote him a little message, and I said, ’You know, Bill Clinton broke my heart, and now you did, too.’ You know the conclusion I’ve come to? Men suck.”
Ms. O’Donnell went on to argue that men are physiologically unable to control their sexual impulses, saying the Swalwell situation had taught her not to trust anyone in public life.
“People have images and they sell themselves as one thing, but they’re not that thing,” she said. “They have complications like all humans do, right? They have addictions, they have impulses, they have frontal lobe disorder, they have narcissism, they have a spoiled privileged upbringing that warps their perspective.”
In a follow-up video posted Wednesday, Ms. O’Donnell said she was “so angry” about Mr. Swalwell. “I’m so disappointed and so sick of all politicians, because all they do is lie, 24/7.”
Mr. Swalwell announced his resignation from Congress on Monday, a day after suspending his campaign for California governor, following allegations from four women of sexual harassment, assault and rape. A former congressional staffer accused him of sexually assaulting her on two occasions when she was too intoxicated to consent.
A second woman, Lonna Drewes, subsequently alleged at a Los Angeles news conference that Mr. Swalwell drugged and raped her in his West Hollywood hotel room in 2018. Three additional women accused him of sending unsolicited explicit messages. Mr. Swalwell has denied the assault allegations while acknowledging unspecified “mistakes in judgment.”
At least two local district attorneys’ offices — in Manhattan and Alameda County — are conducting criminal investigations, according to CNN.
Ms. O’Donnell relocated to Ireland ahead of President Trump’s January 2025 inauguration. She acknowledged in a February interview on SiriusXM’s “Cuomo Mornings” that she had quietly returned to the United States for two weeks to visit family, saying she “wanted to make sure that it was safe” for her and her daughter to return over the summer.
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