“This Movie is a Cry for Help from the Members of Congress to the American People”: Daniel DiMauro and Morgan Pehme on Their HBO doc The Swamp

To call HBO’s The Swamp a thrilling character-based portrait of three conservative white guys might seem oxymoronic, but in the capable hands and open minds of co-directors Daniel DiMauro and Morgan Pehme (Get Me Roger Stone) it’s a completely apt description. The doc is an unexpected, up-close look at the daily D.C. lives of a trio of House members who few subscribers to HBO would ever conceive of voting for: far right-wingers Matt Gaetz (R-FL 1st District), Thomas Massie (R-KY 4th District), and Ken Buck (R-CO 4th District). In other words, it’s exactly the caricature-busting film that progressives (like myself) really need to see.

With startling access, the filmmakers follow along as these Republican rebels fight — and usually fail — to “drain the swamp” through mundane bipartisan legislation that never makes the 24/7 news cycle but should. Gaetz and leftie Ro Khanna teaming up? Massie and liberal Barbara Lee? Yup, it happened while we were all trapped in the Trump twitter feed. DiMauro and Pehme are flies on the restaurant wall when Gaetz sits down with his friend Katie Hill — who he later defended in a tweet as her own Democratic leadership forced her to resign from the House in scandal — for advice on whether to forgo PAC money. The duo even capture pro-coal Massie charging his electric car! And all this as the Fox News heroes try to keep their heads above water in a “swamp” that includes “whoring” for dollars, performing impeachment outrage for the cameras (i.e., for Trump), and worrying that the slightest bucking of the MAGA line will result in a president-ordered primary challenge.


To break the system or fix the broken system? That has long been the question. To shine some light on this infuriating paradox and more, Filmmaker reached out to the patient co-directors prior to the doc’s August 4th debut on HBO.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.