Jon Swaine
speaker
101 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 30 Jun
Jon Swaine’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 2.
Appearances
and politician gets advice and steers on where they should go and what they should avoid.
But, you know, to use verbatim phrasing from one person, it seemed unusual.
The second area is that in some of these memos, we see remarkably specific instructions, you know, release a press release tomorrow on this, then propose a bill.
And sure enough, the next day she releases a press release and then the week after proposes a bill.
in exactly the same terms as the memo recommended.
And I think the third area that really sets it apart from this usual advisor-politician relationship is this sharp criticism, this harsh language that the unnamed advisor who our source says is Butler
criticizing Tulsi Gabbard for her poor performance as he saw it.
So he uses expletives to tell her no one cared about her response to Barack Obama's State of the Union speech, tells her that she's mealy-mouthed, that she's lazy, she hasn't done her homework.
And people I speak with say that's pretty unusual for an advisor to be being quite so bold in slapping down a member of Congress and telling them basically that they suck.
And so, you know, that in those three ways, it really seemed to be more than usual.
It's pretty much what you just said.
If this were a Christian group and we got hold of these documents that documented quite such harsh criticism and direct instructions, we would do the story.
It would just make no difference.
And Tulsi Gabbard has long said that Chris Butler is her spiritual teacher and likened him to an imam, a priest, a rabbi, etc.
I think the piece makes pretty clear that this goes way beyond the usual relationship with a faith leader.
And to come back around to what we were just both saying, if any rabbi, priest, imam were being quite so direct and quite so harsh with a member of Congress, we would do the story all the same.
It has no difference.
Sure.
So you're right.
Like, I, in late May, sent her and her representatives a whole load of questions again and said, you know, we're probably going to go ahead with this.
Showing 61–80 of 101 · page 4 of 6
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