Ruben Gallego’s friends told him to, “lay low,” as he put it, “and this will pass over.” He didn’t agree.

The Arizona Democratic senator was right about one thing: This month’s sexual assault allegations against Eric Swalwell, Gallego’s onetime “best friend,” didn’t just destroy the Californian’s political career. They also subjected Gallego to the first stress test of the party’s invisible 2028 presidential primary, which is already underway.

Which makes Gallego’s handling of the Swalwell disaster all the more remarkable. He held a 35-minute clear-the-air presser and spoke at length with me recently about the ad hoc war room he developed as the Swalwell crisis grew. He was confident that a rummage through his life, the kind presidential campaigns inevitably prompt, would not turn up stories of misconduct.

“I could see early on that this was no longer about Eric Swalwell,” Gallego told me. “It was about targeting me. When you have Chris LaCivita tweeting it, and then Karoline Leavitt talking about me from the White House podium, that’s when I came to that realization.”

He told me that, with “100%” certainty, he’d never gotten so intoxicated that he did something he couldn’t remember. He acknowledged a “reputation” for late nights and drinking, “before having kids,” that he now felt was being used against him — particularly in a NOTUS story about him inviting embassy staff to join him “partying” past midnight on an official trip to Colombia.

“I will not expose myself to anything of this nature whatsoever with any embassy staff anymore,” he said. “It’s unfortunate. I’m just not going to risk it.”

Perhaps the only question Gallego pushed off, at his April 14 press conference, and in our interview, was a big one: whether his credulous friendship with Swalwell made him less likely to run for president. The Swalwell crisis moved from questions about how the senator could be so trusting of his friend to follow-ups about whether he, too, was hiding something.

Gallego was not implicated by any of the multiple women who came forward against Swalwell, but his press conference didn’t fully quiet the scrutiny he got — particularly after admitting then that he’d heard “rumors” the former House member was “flirty.”

He told me he was frustrated by the commentary about his decision, especially theories about his body language. Commentators who didn’t believe his answers homed in on his folded arms and quick “no” when asked if he’d behaved like Swalwell.

“My team hates this, but folding arms is a very common thing in the Marines, right? Especially when you’re mad,” he said. “You fold your arms to show the seriousness and gravity of the situation, and also because you don’t want to be waving your hands and choking somebody if they ask a very sick, insulting question.”

Despite the mixed results from his press conference, Gallego told me he saw the negative coverage he faced as amplified by his political rivals. He said he’d urged colleagues to adopt his approach of specifically refuting any charge thrown his way.

“They’re going to do this to every Democrat going forward, especially if you’re running statewide, or if you’re running for president,” he said. “What they’re doing to me is what they’re going to do to everybody, because it works.”