Rep. Eric Swalwell said Tuesday that while he's centering his presidential campaign around gun control, that doesn't mean he wants to take Americans' guns away from them.
"I'm telling folks, keep your rifles, keep your shotguns, keep your pistols," the California Democrat told ABC News' "Good Morning America" anchor George Stephanopoulos. "We just want the most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the most dangerous people. Most gun owners believe that."
Swalwell is a former prosecutor and has often spoken out about stopping gun violence. Tuesday, he will host a town hall in Coral Springs, Florida, along with students and families with ties to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on the topic.
The 38-year-old candidate also will focus his campaign on student loan debt, noting that he is still working to pay off his own loan of just under $100,000.
"It’s never really been the top issue in a presidential campaign. It’s going to be for me," Swalwell told Stephanopoulos.
Swalwell, as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, Tuesday also criticized President Donald Trump, while the waiting continues for Attorney General William Barr to release special counsel Robert Mueller's report on his probe on Trump and Russia.
"Just because he wasn’t criminally indicted doesn’t mean that he met the standard of conduct that we should expect from a president or a candidate," Swalwell said Tuesday.
He said he thinks that the report will reveal that Trump, his family, and his team "did not say 'no' any time they were offered information by the Russians, and eagerly asked the Russians to keep bringing more."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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