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- [00:00]
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Host
I'm joined by California Senator Adam Schiff. Senator, you grilled Cash Patel, Donald Trump's pick to be the director of the FBI. That hearing took place earlier. What's your reaction?
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Adam Schiff
Well, I think if you were watching the hearing, you could see this is the guy that rose through the ranks in Trump world by being the guy that wouldn't say no to the President, who would do things that others would not. This is the guy who was promoting songs by a prison choir that included people that had beat Capitol Police officers. He tried to dissemble about that today, first saying that he had nothing to do with these recordings. And then when confronted with statements he made on Bannon's podcast about how we did this to produce it and we mastered the recording and we went to the studio, suddenly denied that by we he was including himself. So there were some absurd efforts at deflection, some clear demonstrations of dishonesty, but more seriously, an unwillingness to acknowledge that he was glorifying people who would attack law enforcement. He refused to talk about what he testified before a grand jury in the Mar? A Lago documents case. He was maybe the first FBI nominee, director nominee in history to have to take the fifth before he would testify before the grand jury. So this is not someone you want running the FBI.
- [02:03]
Host
Use the words dissemble, dishonesty. Look, you were a former federal prosecutor. Do you believe his conduct today in lying rose to the level of perjury?
- [02:15]
Adam Schiff
You know, perjury is a tough case to prove. He clearly made contradictory statements, at times contradictory statements from the beginning of the hearing and later in a different part of the hearing. But perjury is a high bar. No, I think what he did today was essentially claim that he didn't remember all the statements he'd made in the past. He would need to know the context of saying that there were cowards in uniform on January 6, that he wouldn't possibly suggest that that meant the law enforcement officers being beaten that day. There used to be a time when it would be considered a heresy for an FBI nominee to say that anyone was a coward in uniform, whether they were police officers, as clearly appears from what he said, or whether they were military, as he's suggesting that that is somehow better, that he's calling our uniformed officers cowards in uniform. But this is not someone that can be trusted in the premier law enforcement agency in a position where, frankly, there's not a lot of review of what you do if you start an investigation, not many people get to see it. If you target people, you can be doing it without a lot of disclosure. And so it has enormous power. And it's not someone you want who's untrustworthy. And the people that serve with Kash Patel in the Trump administration, like former Attorney General Bill Barr or John Bolton or Charles Kupperman or all these people that got to see his work think it's disgraceful. He's been considered for this.
- [03:53]
Host
You know, obviously disqualifying to you the Democrats who are questioning him as well. But you know, the Republic, a lot of your Republican colleagues ostensibly are going to vote for this guy who clearly doesn't have the temperament, qualifications. The things he said is outright disqualifying. So, one, I guess what's your reaction to that? But two, then what, what can we the people do? Because to me, this isn't a, this shouldn't be a Republican or Democrat or independent issue. This should just be an American issue that the FBI director is saying horrific things about cops and police and is making songs with people who tried to kill cops and is bragging about making masters and singles on the Billbo charts.
- [04:37]
Adam Schiff
Well, that's exactly right. That is what he was doing. That is now what he's trying to deny and distance himself from, notwithstanding all the proud posts he made about how we're going to hit number one. And even during the hearing today, he seemed quite proud that his violent criminal choir made it to number one on the charts. But here's the thing, with respect to my colleagues on the committee that you asked about. And what are they going to do? How could we really consider a nominee this unqualified, this really disqualified? I posed that in my closing statement today in the committee that we're already just a week and a half into this new administration. The president has fired prosecutors. His Justice Department has fired prosecutors who investigated him. They are investigating the investigators just as they threatened to do. They have fired inspector generals in contravention of the law. That history is littered with Democracies that lost their way and lost their freedoms and lost their democracy and didn't know it was happening while it was happening. And I made a plea to my colleagues, let's not add our country to the list, because I do think that's what's happening right now. And we seem to be blithely walking down the path of one man rule. And that way destruction lies.
- [05:59]
Host
Do you think it can be stopped, though? I'm going to talk about the freeze the government for other things, but as you're bringing that up right now, these are dark times. Donald Trump's holding, the press conferences that give me the flashbacks to the inject yourself with bleach. Like a miracle. It's all going to go away. Covid press conferences every day, wmd, weapon of mass distraction. Look here, look here. The posts he makes on social media, amplifying QAnon accounts. It's crazy laziness. People are worried. They're hearing all of this. What can we do? I think that's what people want to know, like, what can we do to protect our democracy? And what are the Democrats in the Senate, in the House otherwise doing to step up?
- [06:44]
Adam Schiff
Well, look, we're going to get through this. It's going to be a rough four years. We just have to acknowledge that. But we are going to get through this. And the way we get through it is by using every tool at our disposal. If you look at, for example, this executive order to freeze all federal funding, we mobilized to push back. We organized ourselves on the Senate floor. We had others bringing private litigation. We had people speaking out at the local, state and federal level, and they were forced to backtrack. Now, that's a very partial victory because they have made it clear that, okay, they're rescinding their memo freezing all funding, but they're not stopping. This is a temporary setback for them. We are going to have to, in every respect that we can, where they're violating the law and Constitution, push back, fight back and expose what they're doing and the harms it's causing to the American people. This is a guy who ran on lowering the price of eggs. Well, look at the price of eggs right now. Look at all these executive orders and ask yourselves, what is this really doing for the American people? On the central reason people supposedly chose Trump, and that was he was going to bring down the cost of living. Well, almost none of what he issued by executive order does anything of the kind. So get involved with an organization that is picking an important part of this Fight. The best thing I would say for your viewers to do to avoid the despair that comes from feeling you have no control over what's happening is to be involved. You don't have to invent the wheel. If you care about what he's doing to the environment and his drill, baby, drill and the fact that it's producing these deadly fires in California and deadly hurricanes in North Carolina. There are lots of great environmental groups to get involved with if you care about what they're doing. To go after the trans community or to go after the reproductive freedom rights of Americans. There are organizations that are fighting to protect people. If you want to weigh in on the immigration debate and push back against mass deportations, there are groups that will allow you to be a part of calling attention to these, these acts of great inhumanity and speaking out and acting out and joining those litigating to push back.
- [09:00]
Host
You know, Donald Trump does the thing where on the one hand he's the strong man. I know everything. Look, I fixed it all on day one. It's all perfect. Then tragedy strikes and he acts like I had nothing to do with it. I don't know. It's President Biden's fault. It's Pete Buddha judges fault. It's the fault of diversity. You know, we held this press conference earlier today where he was asked about this devastating, tragic plane crash, the plane from Kansas heading into D.C. over 60 people died. President Trump was asked about it and he blamed it on diversity. He said it was Biden's fault. As, as Biden bodies were being searched for in the heart of the tragedy, that's where he went right away. What does that tell you about him and just about the situation in general?
- [09:50]
Adam Schiff
Well, what it tells us again, what it really reminds us of when it comes to Donald Trump, is there's only one guiding philosophy. There's only one ideology, and that is self. That's the only consistency with Donald Trump. He'll say things five ways come Friday. He'll contradict himself twice before lunch. But the only through line is he will do and say whatever he thinks is best for him. So if that means making up stuff about a crash or making up stuff about fires or making up stuff about really any disaster or failure on his own part. He will lie and obfuscate, blame everyone else, play the victim, that's what he does. This is not someone who rallies to bring the country together at times of tragedy. This is someone who all too often adds to the tragedy with these kind of gratuitous attacks on other people. So, sadly, I think we're seeing this replayed again. We're going to see it for four more years before we're finally through with this part of our history.
- [10:51]
Host
But that's who he is, you know, he seems to have Senator Adams Schiff derangement syndrome. He consistently makes up stories about you, posts about you on social media, seems to be kind of constantly thinking about you and just also just saying a bunch of, like, really weird. Just weird and strange things about you. He's very fixated on your appearance, which I also think is just, like, a very strange thing for, you know, to do. But I'm not going to psychoanalyze him there. But one, when he does that, like, what's your reaction to it? Just as like a human being when the President now is saying that to you. And then two, you know, just your overall reflections when that happens. And, you know, it's going to happen almost weekly or daily now.
- [11:36]
Adam Schiff
You know, I've sadly had to get used to it over the years. I remember the first time it happened, he attacked me on Twitter. This was, I think, in just a few months into his first term, sleazy. Adam Schiff, you know, corrupt this, corrupt that. I can't remember what else was in that first tweet, but I was quite desperate to respond. I was on the House floor, and my colleague Mike Thompson from Napa grabs my arm and he says, adam, you should tweet back. Mr. President, when they go low, we go high. Go fuck yourself. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that on your podcast, and believe me, I was sorely tempted. But, you know, since that time, as you point out, there have been innumerable similar attacks from the presidents, sometimes weekly, sometimes daily. The kind of thing as you. As you say that, you know, calls me different names that you might hear when you're in the fifth grade, but most people grow out of when they get to the sixth grade, but apparently not in the case of the President. But I just, as my dad used to say, you got to let certain things roll off you like water off a duck's ass. And that's what I do.
- [12:41]
Host
Finally, Senator, one of the signs of hope I think we've seen here is that over the past 48 hours on this network, around 23 million views on this YouTube channel. So that's more than the three top Fox shows kind of combined in that same time period. So people want to hear from people like you and other Democratic senators. They're. They're craving info and data and what do we do? And we want to rally. So I'll just leave it with this, you know, what's your kind of sign off message today in this interview? And I hope you'll come back and we'll, you know, you know, check in throughout this, this congressional and Senate term. But what's your messages to the people out there in general, what with everything going on, with prices not going down, going up, housing is not more affordable, the price of eggs through the roof, gas is going up. What do you want to say to the people?
- [13:33]
Adam Schiff
I would say two things. First, we're going to get through this. I think people need to have the confidence in knowing we're going to get through this. But second, we got to keep our eyes on the prize. We got to focus on those things that truly matter. The most destructive acts by the president. We can't be chasing every crazy squirrel that comes out of Trump land. That means we need to focus on things like freezing all federal funding that affect people who are on Medicaid, that affect whether there's rent that people can pay to stay in their homes. We need to focus on mass deportations, which means that millions of people could be separated from their kids. He's threatening to send people to Guantanamo. The inhumanity of what he is proposing and trying to effectuate. We need to focus big picture too on what's happening to our country and how he wants to turn this country into one man rule. All of what he is doing with the firings of inspector generals, with the firings of people at the Justice Department, with the purging of federal employees, all of this is designed to create a one man rule state. We can't be oblivious to what's happening and we need to put things in that context so people can see them clearly. But finally, to get back to my first point, we're going to through this, we will, you know, buckle up. It's going to be bumpy over the next four years, but we'll get through this together.
- [14:56]
Host
California Senator Adam Schiff, thanks for joining us. Please come back whenever you want.
- [15:01]
Adam Schiff
Thank you everybody.
- [15:02]
Host
Hit subscribe. Let's get to 4 million subscribers by next week. Thanks for watching. Can't get enough Midas. Check out the Midas plus substack for ad. Free articles, reports, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Filipkowski and more. Sign up for free now@midasplus.com.