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Unknown A
It is great to welcome back to the program for the first time as Senator Adam Schiff. Senator Adam Schiff. You know it. I had one interview I plan to do with you this morning and then in the last seven hours, so many things happened. Elon Musk is tweeting that you're a criminal. Cash Patel has been confirmed, who seems uniquely unqualified to be director of the FBI to start like at the 40,000 foot level. Is this first month of this administration exactly what you expected or is it even worse? Because I expected it to be pretty disturbing and I'm finding myself thinking this is even worse than I anticipated.
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Unknown B
Oh, I think it's much worse than I had a very low expectation. But this was true of the first Trump administration. I thought going into that first experiment in Trump MAGA world that it would be bad, but it was far worse. This is far worse than that. Sadly, they learned from the first four years they came loaded for bear. They're willing to trample any ethical line, any legal line. And now they have immunity from the US Supreme Court. And not only does the President have immunity to commit crimes, but the people around him know that on his way out the door, they're likely to get a pardon from him. So it's basically a lawless administration and we are really going to be tested over the next four years. But just to look at those events of the last seven hours, only in Trump's America, where people who violently attacked police and beat them and gouged them and bear sprayed them on January 6th get a pardon.
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Unknown B
Those violent criminals get a pardon, and the people in the FBI who investigated them get purged. Only in that kind of a world, that upside down, wrong headed world, can a sycophant like Cash Patel become an FBI director. But that is tragically where we are.
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Unknown A
We were told this would be an administration that champions law and order, but. But it seems to be very much the opposite with these pardons and with essentially a recreation of Richard Nixon's if the President does it, it's not illegal that we saw recently. We were told this would be good for the middle class, but they want to decimate the cfpb. They want to do away with apparatus that can actually defend against the overreach of whether it's corporations or whoever. I'm very worried about just the average American who works for a living and has sort of the nominal amount of savings most people have. It seems as though these protections are being taken down one by, excuse me, one by one. And as you point out, I don't know what backstop there is at this point to put a stop to it.
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Unknown B
You're absolutely right. What we're saying is truly Orwellian. It's the kind of doublespeak that George Orwell imagined. But now we're seeing they are firing inspector generals in the name of rooting out corruption. They are firing the head of the Office of Government Ethics in the name of ethics. They are going after and firing wildland firefighters in the service of fighting fires. It's also asked backwards. None of it makes any sense except viewed through the perspective of what they're really after. And that is getting rid of all the checks in the system so they can raid the treasury so there's no one to stop them from plundering the resources of the country to fund a massive tax cut for super rich people and large corporations. That's what this is all about. And you know, where all these lines intersect is the more they can stop any kind of opposition, any kind of even oversight, the better it is to plunder the treasury.
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Unknown B
So anyone that stands in their way, any independents in the Congress, any independent overseer, whether it's an inspector general or the government ethics office, they have to be fired. They have to be done away with in order for Trump to really fill the swamp in the name of emptying the swamp.
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Unknown A
You know, when I watched this Kafkaesque event in the Oval Office last week where Elon Musk and one of his kids were really getting all of the attention as the president sat sort of hunched over and looking dejected and certainly not in control, I saw this Sean Hannity interview again where Elon, I don't know who's babysitting whom, but Elon Musk is there alongside Donald, Donald Trump. And Hannity seems to be really deferring to Musk rather than to the president. What is your sense of who's really in charge right now?
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Unknown B
Well, Donald Trump I think, is older and his age is really showing. I think he's never been particularly interested in running the government. He's more interested in the trappings of government. So he's more than happy to be out on the golf course and let Elon be Elon. I think he views that as a great division of labor. And more than that, he's content to have Elon take the heat and that way he doesn't have to. And I think we have to be careful even as we point out all the conflicts of interest that Elon Musk has, all the self serving, self dealing that we don't lose sight of who's really behind this, and that is Donald Trump. But I think Trump finds him useful. He doesn't want to expend the energy to run the government, so why not outsource that to Elon Musk, who will outsource all of our jobs and.
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Unknown B
And only enrich himself. So I. I think that's the deal. Trump looks old. He seems tired. He is. He's more erratic than ever, and he's content to let others do the hard work of governing.
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Unknown A
When we think about the concept of revenge, which seemed to be a driving force during the 2024 campaign, it certainly seems to be important for the recently confirmed new FBI director. I spoke to a couple of D.C. lawyers informally who said, you know, David, I do think there's going to be an interest from this administration in going after progressive, independent media outlets like yours. They're not going to do it in the way you might think. It'll be tax audits, scrutiny of different kinds, social media, deplatforming, pressure, investigations into funding this sort of thing. You seem to be in the crosshairs here where Donald Trump would regularly go after you during his first term. We're now hearing from Elon Musk. You're a criminal. We're seeing all of this. Do you have any sense that. That you may be targeted personally by this administration?
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Unknown B
Well, I certainly have to anticipate that's very likely. Cash Patel is, you know, about nothing except for being the tool of Donald Trump's retribution. He's now going to be running the FBI. You have Elon Musk directing his hate and his bile and his lies at me on Twitter, and, of course, Donald Trump calling me the enemy within. But here's the thing, and I tried to articulate this on the Senate floor just a short time ago. Yeah, he may be coming after me right now, but how long do you think it's going to be before he comes after you? Right. You. Yes. An independent voice standing up to him. You, the mainstream media, you, Republicans in the Senate who step an inch out of line. I told my Senate colleagues there was far more room under Donald Trump's bus than there is on it. We saw in the first term.
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Unknown B
He has no loyalty to anyone. If. If you think you can avoid his wrath, you're sadly mistaken. I mean, look what's happened to President Zelensky just within the last few days. Yes, because President Zelensky, as the leader of his country, as really the true Churchillian figure of our time, wasn't content to be left out of a negotiation over his own country's future, he was willing to stand up and defend the sovereignty of his own nation. And so what does Donald Trump do? He takes this as a personal affront. He calls Zelensky an illegitimate leader. He says that Ukraine started the war even though Russia invaded Ukraine. It would be absurd if it wasn't so damn dangerous, if it wasn't such a betrayal of everything the country has stood for. I have to imagine Ronald Reagan is rolling over his grave at this utter surrender to the Kremlin.
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Unknown B
There's, you know, there are a lot of happy people about this upending of American democracy. Yeah. Just happened to live in Moscow and in Beijing. But it is terrible tragedy for the United States, for our European allies, and here at home. It will be a terrible tragedy for anyone willing to stand up to this.
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Unknown A
Most unethical of presidents in terms of standing up. You don't. I obviously don't expect you to betray any confidences or name names necessarily, but are any of your Republican counterparts in the Senate privately expressing concern about the power grab, the executive order, about expanding the power of the presidency, the sort of being enamored with these strongmen, authoritarians globally, Putin included? Are you hearing concern from Republicans?
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Unknown B
I am hearing concern. And really for the first time, some of that concern is spilling out into the public. At the Munich National Security Conference, one of my colleagues, Roger Wicker, very conservative Republican, talked about what a mistake it was for Hegseth to essentially write off NATO membership for Ukraine or make territorial concessions to Russia even before the negotiations took place. He called it a rookie mistake. And I think he's been even more forceful in pushing back against the president's lies about who started the war in Ukraine. So we're starting to see Republicans being willing not just to express private reservations to me or to other Democrats, but to speak publicly about them. We saw a couple Republicans vote against Cash Patel today. You know, my concern with the votes on the nominees is they seem to have decided to parcel out their opposition in such a way that they could show independence on this nominee or that one.
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Unknown B
But as long as they divided their opposition and sort of came to an understanding that they wouldn't band together to actually defeat anyone, well, that really doesn't do much good except maybe help them politically. What we are really going to need are Republicans willing to stand up and. And voice their concerns in the way that really matters around here, and that is with their vote.
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Unknown A
The last few minutes we have, I'd like to talk a little bit about Democratic strategy strategy. When I spoke to Senators Booker and Warren separately, we talked about, you and I and many of the people that watch this show. We knew last year the crime epidemic that Republicans were talking about did not exist. It wasn't borne out by the data. The border crisis at the in the way that it was being described by Trump and Republicans did not, did not exist. Economic indicators were mostly pretty good, but it really doesn't matter if voters don't buy it. And thus Vice President Harris was hurt by many voters not feeling as though she was taking concerns about those issues seriously. We can show them the facts all day. The crime is down, right? Inflation is down, the stock market's doing well, record job creation. But if they don't believe it, it sort of doesn't matter.
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Unknown A
If you appear to be dismissing concerns, what do we need to see to prevent that from happening again? And do you get the feeling that the Democratic Party gets it and gets what went wrong?
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Unknown B
Well, we're going to need to do a couple of things in order to turn this around. First of all, we need to be speaking to people wherever they're getting their information. And I think Democrats have too much relied on traditional media. When a lot of Americans have moved away from traditional media and we've got to be talking to people where they're getting their information, you can have the best argument in the world, but if no one hears you, you're not going to persuade them. And, you know, for that reason, among others, I greatly appreciate what you're doing. You're really an amplifier of your own views, which are super important. But you're also helping to give voice to others with your show that is reaching millions and millions of people. So we need to be broader in terms of who we're communicating with and how we're communicating.
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Unknown B
But we also have to have big ideas that are commensurate with the big problems facing the country. We can't be viewed as an agent of the status quo at a time when people are unhappy with the status quo. So that is really important. It's not enough to just be just against what Donald Trump is doing in his terrible, you know, destruction path of destruction. But we also have to be offering something big and clear and powerful that that says we understand the economy is not working for everyone. And to me, the central existential question right now in America is, if you're working hard in America, can you still earn a good living? And the party that can answer that question with real solutions is the one that's going to be winning elections I want to make sure that's the Democratic Party.
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Unknown A
Senator Adam Schiff, thank you so much for spending a little time with us today. Really appreciate it.
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Unknown B
Great to be with you. And again, thanks for everything you're doing.