And joining me now is Democratic senator Elect Adam Schiff
of California.
Senator Elect Schiff, welcome back to me, the press.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Yeah, great to have you here.
Let's start off by talking about Matt Gaetz.
You just heard me talking with Senator Schmidt about this.
He's obviously no longer in contention to be attorney general,
but there's still this report swirling around him.
The House investigation of the House Ethics Committee has launched
this investigation.
Details of it started to leak out this week to
some members on Capitol Hill.
But do you think that report should be made public?
I do think it should may be made public.
I don't think that when someone decides to avoid the
public accountability, they simply leave Congress and make it all
go away.
The taxpayers paid for that analysis and that report.
I think they have a right to see it.
Do you think it will be made public?
Do you have any indication?
I don't know it.
It seems like on a party line basis, Republicans are
saying no, the public has no right to see this.
And what's more, we don't want the public to see
this.
But it underscores to me why the president's lack of
background checks for his nominees is flawed.
He may have still decided to nominate Matt Gaetz, but
if they did a thorough vetting, he may have decided
not to.
That vetting process, having the FBI review potential nominees, it's
not only to protect the public interest, it's to protect
the president's elect's interest, to make sure that he's not
embarrassed by nominating someone like Matt Gaetz.
So I think it shows a flaw in the process
that he even got nominated.
And you know, perhaps with the respect to Hegseth as
well, had a thorough investigation been done, it might have
influenced the the president elect's decision to nominate him in
the 1st place.
Let me ask you, big pictures.
Obviously, president-elect Trump has now said he wants to pick
Pam Bondi to service his attorney general.
He has swept the battleground states.
He won the popular vote.
Republicans have control of the House and of the Senate.
Do you think that the president-elect should have his picks
confirmed?
Well, I think the president has a right to nominate
anyone who's qualified, who has good judgement and good character.
It doesn't mean he's guaranteed Senate approval of whoever he
nominates.
And some of these nominees are deeply problematic.
I'll be interested in the confirmation process.
Will Pam Bondi continue to tell the big lie?
Even Underoath, is she going to continue to say that
the Justice Department should be prosecuting prosecutors who brought valid
evidence before a grand jury?
Grand jury found probable cause to believe Donald Trump committed
crimes.
That's not a basis to go after them.
So she's going to have to answer tough questions.
Tulsi Gabbard concerns me a great deal that someone who
has echoed Kremlin talking points, someone who has appeared to
make common cause with someone like Bashar al-Assad who gasses
his own people, someone who has no experience whatsoever, not
even on the Intelligence Committee in the Congress, should be
running those agencies.
So they're going to have tough questions to answer.
Senator Elective, is there anyone on this list who at
this very moment you think you could vote yes on?
You could.
Well, you know, for example, I think Marco Rubio is
enormously well qualified for the job for which he's been
nominated.
I still want to ask questions.
I'm not going to completely prejudge even him, but he's
unquestionably qualified.
And there are others as well, but some really stand
out for the risk they would present to the American
people.
So right now, Senator Rubio would have your vote as
a yes.
Well, I I'm strongly inclined that way.
I don't want to prejudge completely because you never can
tell what comes out in the vetting process, but he's
unquestionably qualified.
Let's talk about your former colleague who you just mentioned,
Tulsi Gabbard.
She's been picked as director of national intelligence.
Just last week, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Gabbard was,
quote, likely a Russian asset.
Do you share those concerns or is that overstated?
Well, I wouldn't describe her that way, but what I
would say this, she has certainly echoed talking points for
the Kremlin.
She appeared to have taken Putin's side when he invaded
Ukraine.
And you know, her fondness for Bashar al-Assad, someone who
is gassing his own people, calls her judgment deeply into
question.
So here you have someone with very questionable judgment and
no experience.
That's not a great recipe for running the agencies.
And the problem is if our foreign allies don't trust
the head of our intelligence agencies, they'll stop sharing information
with us.
And that makes our country less safe.
So I have profound concerns about her.
Well, Speaking of foreign allies and adversaries, I want to
play something that president-elect Trump said about you when he
was a candidate.
He called you, quote, more dangerous than foreign adversaries.
Take a listen and get your reaction.
On the other side, the enemy from within, in my
opinion, is more dangerous in China, Russia and all these
countries because if you have a smart president, he can
handle them pretty easily.
I handled, I got along great with all.
I handled them.
But the thing that's tougher to handle are these lunatics
that we have inside, like Adam Schiff, Adam Shifty Shift
senator elect.
When you hear that language, how concerned are you that
you will be targeted by president-elect Trump and his second
administration?
Well, that's that's dictator talk.
That's how autocrats talk.
They want to make their political opposition an enemy.
Describe them in those terms.
But look, I'm not concerned about myself.
I'm going to do my job.
I'm not going to have his threats intimidate me from
from doing so.
But anytime you have someone, particularly someone who's going to
become president of the United States, fawning over dictators, emulating
their language, attacking the press, undermining our institutions, yeah, we
should be concerned about it.
Because at the end of the day, it means that
the American people will suffer.
The American people, I think voted on the basis of
the economy.
They want to change the economy.
They weren't voting for dictatorship.
So I think he is going to misread his mandate
if that's what he thinks voters chosen for.
Let me ask you, because there is an effort underway
to dismiss both the federal and the state cases that
president-elect Trump is facing.
Do you believe that that is appropriate again, now that
he has won office, now that he is going to
be in the White House again, the Supreme Court has
obviously said that he has immunity for all official acts
once he's in office.
Do you think these cases should be dismissed?
I don't.
I think the sentencing and for the proceedings in the
New York case should be deferred until after he leaves
office.
And likewise, I think for the proceedings in the two
federal cases should be deferred until he leaves office.
But they should not be dismissed.
A jury of Donald Trump's peers found him guilty.
He's no less guilty because he won an election.
There were two grand juries who found probable cause to
believe Donald Trump committed federal crimes.
Those cases shouldn't go out of go away simply because
he was elected.
The presidency is not a get out of jail free
card.
Instead, they should be postponed for further proceedings until after
he leaves office.
All right, I want to turn now to the results
of the 2024 election and and talk a little bit
about what you think may have gone wrong.
You joined this program a month before the election and
you talked about Vice President Harris's chances of winning.
Take a look at this.
By the standards of today, I think she can win,
win overwhelmingly.
You know, given how divided the country is, overwhelming, maybe
winning by 100,000 votes or 80,000 votes in these key
battleground states.
I think that's within her capacity to do so.
I think we are well poised to win this thing,
but it is still scary close.
Why do you think that Kamala Harris didn't win and
win overwhelmingly?
I think Joe Biden's decision to step aside and pass
the torch was the right decision.
It gave us a chance to win.
It didn't give us a guarantee.
And I thought she could win and I thought she
could win in all the battleground states.
But ultimately what we saw both in this country and
around the world was a very strong anti incumbent wave
that took out both progressives and conservatives and our party
became associated with the status quo and that was too
much to overcome.
I think the principal issue is the economy.
And over years and even decades, it's gotten more and
more difficult for people working full time to make a
living.
And until we resolve that challenge the economy, we may
find the presidency is easier to get than it is
to keep.
You know, you talk about President Biden's role in all
of this.
Speaker Emerita Pelosi said that he actually should have stepped
aside sooner, that that could have made a significant difference
in the outcome of this election.
Do you agree with the speaker emerita?
Well, she has far better political instincts than I do.
I, you know, I think it's, it's difficult because had
we gone to a competitive primary, for example, what would
the results of that primary been?
How ugly and divisive and chaotic would it have been?
Very hard to tell in advance.
But I do think the, you know, Democratic Party has
to recognize the challenge we have, which is for too
many millions of battleground voters, working people, they don't think
we represent them.
And we have to make that case anew.
But Senator Elect, do you believe that President Biden bears
some responsibility for staying in too long?
Look, I think the entire Democratic Party bears the responsibility,
myself included, and the former president and the not today
an effective campaign.
And you have to give them credit for that.
But the challenge that we have is we need to
put forward a bold vision for how we're going to
move the economy forward, make the economy work for every
American.
To me, the existential question is, if you're working hard
in America, can you still earn a good living?
And too many people doubt that that's possible.
Before I let you go, I do want to ask
you about what happened on Capitol Hill this week.
Congresswoman Nancy Mace introduced legislation to restrict transgender people from
using bathrooms that align with their gender identity.
Mace said the move was in response to Congresswoman Elect
Sarah McBride, who's of course set to become the first
openly transgender member of Congress.
McBride has called this an effort to just distract from
the real issues, but Johnson has actually been supportive of
Nancy Mace.
Where do you come down?
How do you see this?
I think it is a distraction.
We have bigger challenges ahead of us, including the most
immediate, which is we don't want the government to shut
down.
We don't want a default on our debt.
We should be focused on those problems.
All right, Senator Elect, Adam Schiff, thank you so much
for being here in person.
Really appreciate it.
Good to see you.