Adam Schiff Tells All: Could Have Gone to Med School, Mom Livid

President and the Russians have escaped accountability. The attacks went into overdrive when Schiff refused to stop investigating Russian election interference even after Muller released his report a decade ago. Schiff called House Intelligence quote the least partisan and probably the most productive of all the committees on the Hill unquote. This year, every one of his Republican Committee colleagues called for his resignation. This month, the President's re election campaign

started selling shirts featuring shifts distorted face. But when we spoke last week, it was Iran on everyone's mind. They had just bombed two oil tankers near their waters to show their power over global trade. America almost didn't get the advantage of Adam Shift's service, at least in Congress in college, he agonized over his life path. Would it be law and policy or medicine. I procrastinated as long as you possibly could. I took the M cats, I

took the L SATs. I applied to medical school. In law school, I waited literally until I could not wait any longer. And I still remember telling my folks that I had decided to go to law school, and how I told them and what their reaction was, Um, because oh horrified. Um, you know why they were counting on my son the doctor. Oh you know, to get a Jewish mother that close to my son, the doctrine that snatched away as a very cruel thing to do. You know.

My brother had exactly the opposite experience. I got into Cal got into acting school. Um went to acting school. My parents were absolutely mortified. He was at acting school for about two weeks and he hated it, and he was very upset that he had turned down col. But Cal never got the rejection letter. So my mother called Berkeley and it was too late for him to fly up to registers, so she went to Berkeley and registered

for him. Um. But I remember standing in the den of our house and telling my folks that I had made my decision, and they were quite stoic. You know, why is that? And I said, well, uh, you know, I think medicine is very interesting, satisfying. But when I pick up Time magazine, I never flipped to what's new in medicine section. I want to read about what's going

on in the world. It didn't occur to me until midway through my first year of law school that I never flipped to the what's new in the law suction either. But um, was politics on your mind even then. I don't know if politics per se in terms of my running for office, was so much on my mind, although I do attribute a lot of my interest in government service to growing up in Boston. We lived in Boston until my father, who was in the rag businesses he

called it, was transferred out West. Um. You know, growing up, you know, during the nineteen sixties when the Kennedy's were in the ether. Um. You know, I grew up thinking that, uh, public office, public service was a noble calling. So I think that was sort of the background. But when I made decision to go to law school, I was thinking more that I wanted to work just in the area of public policy, even if I didn't know exactly where.

I remember I went to g W and I walked into the dorm room and one guy was unpacked his luggage and I said, I'm Jeff, I'm from New Jersey, and uh, what are you here to study? As he said, political science? I said the other he said, yeah, he said, I'm gonna be the president of the United States. We were in a six man sweet number three walks in counter three. He says, I'm going to be the President

of United States. Everybody went to GW. Everybody went down there to do internships in the Congress, the White House Social Secretary's Office. At internships you can apply for. Do you feel that some people just want nothing to do with that anymore? For running for office? You know, I felt during the Obama administration and during the first Obama campaign that a lot of young people were inspired the same way Democrats have been inspired by Kennedy and Republicans

have been inspired by Reagan. Now I think that they're uh, you know, the vast reaction is just revulsion at what they see going on. The one positive that comes out of it, though, is that people have recognized that they can no longer sit on the sidelines so I can't tell you how many people have told me of the last couple of years that they have never been politically involved before, but now they realize they have to be. Uh. The new class of members is the strongest class I

think we've ever had. I will hold it up to the post Watergate class any day of the week. Uh. These people were motivated because they saw what was going on in in Washington, and we're so distressed that the direction administration wanted to do something about the present circumstances. UM.

When Iran happens, when the bombs, when the tanker was bombed. UM, I'm assuming you get a phone call, someone's calling you, you get briefed, and some of the information comes to Is that how it works, you know, Sometimes that's the way it works. Uh. There are times where I'm informed before the public if we're going to take action somewhere, I may get a call and a heads up about what we're going to do. UM. There are times when

I'm informed at the same time as the public. And in the case of the attacks on the ships, UM, I certainly had the opportunity to sit down with people in the intelligence community to get a full debriefing. Um and you know, it's a deeply distressing and escutory situation there right now. Uh, you know, I don't have any question that Iran was responsible. At the same time, it's also quite clear that they have been so ramping up the pressure on Iran that the Iranian response was all

too predictable. And now that doesn't certainly justify what Iran is doing. And we ought to be marshaling the international community to protect freedom of navigation. But we can see how our allies are not rallying to our side here. Many are doubting what the President and the Secretary of State have to say when the evidence is quite clear.

For those allies of ours who continue to doubt, specifically Germany and Japan who continued to doubt our intelligence about Iran, what would you tell them, Well, I have to think that if we have shared intelligence with them, and I would imagine that we are, that it's less an issue of whether they really question Iran's responsibility, but rather they're worried about going um full skill in hand in hand with Donald Trump on a path towards possible conflict with Iran.

They don't want to see another war with Iran, so they're deeply suspicious and skeptical of the President of Bolton of Pompeo because they knew all along and felt all along and said all along. If you leave the agreement, if you take these other steps, if you designate the r GC as a terrorist organization, if you constrict Iran with these sanctions, you're you're cornering a dangerous animal and it's going to lash out. And that's exactly where we are.

What I think the Administration needs to be doing is working with our allies to figure out a way to protect the navigation in the straits of Hormones, to de escalate the situation, to keep Iran from going back and and beginning in Richmond again, uh and and working constructively with our allies. And you know, the convincing, frankly, is

a lot less to do with the intelligence. The convincing is that the administration doesn't want war with Iran, is prepared to work with our allies to try to avoid that. And now Iran is saying that you know, they're going to leave the agreement, They're going to start enriching iranium, which was also all too predictable. We reneged on the agreement when they were complying, and we're trying to get Europe to also leave the deal. Why should we be

surprised when Iran does? But where does that leave us? This is the deep concern right now, which is it's putting us on a path the conflict. You've been in the Congress now for eighteen years, nineteen years. I remember when I was studying in politics in Washington. They had that great line with the Southern Senator. His line was, I have the least amount of high regard from my

colleague from Pennsylvania. What I mean, the least amount of hire we go, you'd say in attacking him, and uh, you know, the gloves are on and everybody's a little more polite. But it seems to outside is that it's so different now when the Republican members of your committee vote for you to resign, does that make it tough for you went to the room and talk to them

the next day? It does? You know? I think that ever since the now infamous midnight run where our chairman went somewhere in the middle of the night and said he had access to classified information that showed an Obama conspiracy against the Trump administration that he had to rush and present to the White House, and we learned that it had actually gotten this information from the White House and it was bogus. Um. It destroyed the comedy on our committee, and at that time he was forced to

step down. I think this was sort of his chance at payback. But on the issues not involving Russia, on the threat from Iran and China, the challenge of Venezuela and other places around the world, are analysis of our intelligence agencies and are we investing the right amounts and human intelligence versus signals intelligence. All of that work still goes on in a very nonpartisan way in our committee. We we managed to compartmentalize our differences on Russia. Uh.

And those differences are profound. But on the other issues we're able to work together. Um. And that's the good news. But yes, that professional Uh. You know, I think we we all recognize that the job is too big and too important to allow differences, even very severe ones over Russia, to interfere with the other work of the committee. UM. But yes, it makes it very difficult when, in my view of the Republicans, our committee view themselves as um,

a part of Giuliani's defense team. UH. And when you have people who are supposed to be conducting an objective investigation acting as defense counsel. Um. It certainly makes it difficult to work together. Uh. Um you know, I would say in terms of the partisanship in the House, in the relationship between members they were over the last couple of decades, uh, in a period of decline through forces,

obviously having nothing to do with Trump Initially. I think the the way that the media has uh stratified, where um, people who are conservative tune into Fox, that people liberal turn into MSNBC, and those who weren't sure what CNN people were choosing the news they wanted to hear. That was a profound departure from what had been the case before.

UM when as I remember in college, rushing home to see Walter Cronkite's last broadcast that were sort of a broad agreement on a set of facts, and it was like I was a John Chancellor man. UM. So the change in the nature media, I think, accelerated the divisions. Then the change in the way campaigns are funded, where a lot of the power left the parties and left the building and went to these groups that were on the far left of the far right. UM. All of

that contributed to a worsening of relations among members. Uh. But I have to say it took a precipitous fall when Donald Trump took office, and it's not going to change as long as he's there. I mean, this is the first president of my lifetime who I think gets up in the morning determined to find new and better ways to divide us. Uh. And it's really true that the president does set the tone. Uh. And the tone

here is one of of just bitter hostility. Yeah. All I have with these lame analogies like the wicked Witch of the West, where everyone's just cowering in fear. Do you sense from your colleagues that some quotation of them really are onto him, but they just have to suck it up and take Oh without a doubt. I mean, I would have to say the vast majority of them don't like what he's doing to the party, don't like what he's doing to the country. They will express their

private misgiving. Um. I'm frankly fed up with private misgivings. I think they need to speak out, um, but they're afraid to. Uh. You know, those that do, um, like Mark Sandford, Carolina, get attacked and tweeted against and they lose their primary justin Amash. You know, the president and his son are coming after him, um, and so they're just not willing to risk it. They think they want

to write it out if they can. And I do think that when this chapter of history has written, some of the most damning language will be reserved for the GOP members of Commress that refused to stand up to him. I mean, this is someone calling the press the enemy of the people, trying to um, do away with the Congress's power of the purse by declaring non existent emergencies. Uh. You know, someone who is denigrating judges based on their ethnicity. I mean, the list goes on and on. Um. You know.

The the reaction, for example, just the other day to the recommend nation by not Special Council Mother Mueller a different Special Council's office that kelley On and Conway should be relieved of her post for violations of the hatch Ack. Her reaction, you know, was blah blah blah. In other words, who cares about ethics or who even cares about the law. We can do what we want, um. I mean in the in the face of that, yes, I mean the face of that, to uh, to remain quiet, too, to

keep misgivings to oneself. I just think it's profoundly unpatriotic. And I don't know why they wanted the job to begin with. Those folks that you were talking about, that you met in college who wanted to be president, nited States or came to Washington to be interns and were idealistic, you know, someone in the GOP and some went to the Democratic Party. You know, where are those idealists in

the GOP? Where? You know, where are the people that espoused family values and free trade and all those other things that the GOP was supposed to stand for. It's becau I'm a cult of personality around the president, and it's not adequate to say, you know, we're going to hunker down and wait it out. I really think that the country needs people on both parties to be speaking out. Um, what are the policies that aren't getting done that concerns

you the most? Well, there's a lengthy list, and you know this is the the you know, one of the terrible tragedies of where we are, which is, um, it's not as if all the other problems are just standing still. While we self immolate with this presidency. UM. There are any number of unmet needs that we could be addressing in Congress, and we have passed any number of really significant and vital bills, bills to address the issue of

gun safety, like passing universal background checks. We have passed legislation to do away with the gerrymander, to make election day and national holiday and take dark money out of the political process. We passed legislation to guarantee equal will pay for equal work UH, and legislation to try to raise wages, and legislation to try to protect people's healthcare. All of this has past the House and record speed UH, and has gone nowhere in the Senate. Now, there are

two problems in the Senate. UM. One is Mitch McConnell Republicans won't act on in this legislation. The other, of course, is the president and and so all of these issues

are are unfortunately languishing and UH. And you know what that means is the only legislating that gets done is the most basic legislating to keep the government running, UH, to pass a budget for the coming year, and generally a lot of that is just to keep the government on autopilot, where you're not even setting new priorities for spending, you're just doing literally the lowest common denominator. And meanwhile, UH, there are huge problems not just at home but around

the world that we're not addressed. The very first hearing that we had in the Intelligence Committee when I became chairman was not on Russia or China or Iran, but it was on the rise authoritarianism around the world. Uh, the United States should be standing up to these autocrats, but instead we see the autocrats really on the march,

on the rise. And not just in Russia, but we see totalitarianism taking even deeper root in China through the use of this new UH digital technology, big data analytics, ubiquitous CCTV cameras. But we also see increasing authoritarianism in Turkey and the Philippines, in Egypt and Hungary, the rise of the far right parties in Poland and in Austria,

and in Germany and France. UM, and these are big challenges to the very idea of democracy that our country should be taking on our present should be the champion of democracy. But of course none of this has happened. While we um deal with this, you know, completely self absorbed president who seems uncomfortable in a company of other Democrats and only comfortable with other autocrats. So the opportunity costs are tremendous while we confront this presidency. House Intelligence

Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. One witness recently called by Congress about the Muller Report was Richard Nixon's White House Council John Deane. Maybe they'd heard our conversation about impeaching Trump two years ago. I think it's a an appropriate path because it's a constitutional path. The system is designed to deal with the president who is not uh playing the games it's supposed to be played, and that's a determination made by the House of Representatives, which is the closest

to the people. My full interview with John Deane is in our archives that here's the thing, Dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the thing. As the chairman of one of the most important committees investigating the president, Congressman Adam Schiff's reading of the Muller Report has real world consequences. Well, I think he has certainly laid out the case without calling for impeachment, and

I think Mueller made made a couple of decisions. First, he made the decision to follow the Office Legal Council opinion that he says you can't indict a sitting president. Now, I think that OLC opinion is flawed. Um. And and by the way, you know, when Mueller said during his press conference the other day that it would be unconstitutional to indict the president, that really gives a weight to

the OLC opinion that I don't believe it deserves. This is just the opinion of lawyers who occupy that office at any given time. It's not a Supreme Court case. It's not in the Constitution. And I think, in particular on the issue whether you can indict a president and defer the prosecution until they leave office, that where there's a situation where the running of the statute limitations may

effectively mean that a person can avoid justice. Um, that is a far more important consideration than the stigma of an indictment where you don't effectively give the person a means to clear their name until they leave office. So I don't agree with the logic of the OLC opinion, But nonetheless I'm not surprised that he would follow it.

It does follow from that though, and if you are going to feel bound by the OLC opinion that you can't indict the sitting president, the two other things are also true, which is you can't say, as bar would suggest that but for the policy, I would have indicted the president, because then you're basically casting the same stigma over the person. But I think it also meant for Bob Mueller that if he wasn't going to say that he should indict, it was also not going to say

that you should impeach. But rather, here is the evidence, Congress. There is a remedy if you think it appropriate. And it's not my position to tell you whether that is so. But here's the evidence, preserving it for you to do with as you see fit. I'm also preserving it for the Justice Department for when the president leaves office. Uh,

they'll have to determine whether he should be indicted then. Um. But it certainly I think lays out the witnesses a lot of the testimony in some reform that Congress should be bringing before the American people, whether that's in an oversight proceeding or an impeachment proceeding. Now, I take the view that we should begin with an oversight proceeding and see where that leads us. UH, And we are now

starting to bring witnesses in. We had a hearing just last week on volume one of the Mulla Report with counterintelligence experts to talk about the counter intelligence and aspects of the investigation. UM. That is, people that may be compromised within the Trump administration and what danger that poses to American security. So you know, he certainly I think did a profound service and what he did H and left basically passed the baton onto Congress. Pelosi remains unconvinced.

She does not think he should be impeached. Can you say that you agree with that, you disagree with that. I do agree with her. And this is a if we were to embark on it, a very divisive process for the country h and a wrenching process for the country, and one where we know where we end up, which is an acquittal in the Senate UM. And I think before we embark on that we need to know for sure this is the right thing to do. Now. I think there are another ber of factors UM. In my view,

and I think the Speaker probably shares this view. The man is unfit for office. He demonstrates that every day, demonstrated it yet again when he said that, yeah, I might take foreign help again. I don't know that I need to call the FBI. Um. He's either learned nothing over the last two years or he's learned exactly the wrong lesson, which is I can do whatever I want

and there's no consequence. Um. But I I think the concern is that we occupy all of the nation's time for the next year impeaching the president resulting in an acquittal, we then have a precedent that this conduct and adjudication that this conduct is not impeachable, and we're we're between the horns of this dilemma. That is, if we don't impeach, what are we saying about this conduct and whether it

is compatible with office? But if we do a peach and it leads to an adjudication that it's not impeachable, where does that leave us? And UM, you know, I think that's the difficult dilemma At this point. I think we flesh out the evidence, we bring in the witnesses, we get the documents, we make the case to the public um, and we see where that leads us, along with the presidents continuing conduct and it may lead us

to impeachment. But I'm not there yet. I don't think the speakers here there yet, and I don't think most of the Democrats and Congress are there yet. But I'll tell you that President is working hard to get us there. Interesting you see that that he's trying to bating people because perhaps, in his estimation, starting impeachment proceedings works well for him. You know, I think that, and this is just speculation obviously on my part, but I don't think

the President personally wants to be impeached. I think, um, he doesn't want the stigma being one of the few presidents in history to be impeached. I think there are people around him who want him to be impeached because they feel politically it's advantageous that if this is all

about impeachment, then they have a chance to win. If this is actually about anything policy wise, then they're on losing ground because of course they've done nothing but a and this tax cut h and our deficits of just mushroomed and working people have been made no better through it. So they don't have much to run on. But if they can run against impeachment, I think some of the Bannon oriented people probably think it's a pretty good idea. I'm even more neurotic. I mean, I'm not that you

are neurotic. I am neurotic about this. I thought that their strategy was the Republicans would kind of back off on their rhetoric until after they've crossed the halfway mark, so that Pence was then LBJ. The Pence was entitled to ten years in office. See we get the remainder of Trump's term and two full terms of his own. You really are dark. I thought that was the strategy,

give Mike Pence ten years in office. But when that wave, that remarkable wave in the last election, the Democratic take over the House, do you feel that that engine is a lot of times you win the first set and as six out and then you lose the second one goes all your chi goes out of you. You know, are the are the Democratic the D Triple C and all of their minions. Are they still on the balls of their feet raising money for the next h Yeah? I know the fundraising is going really well. I mean

it's obviously a constant effort, but it's going very well. Um. I remember after that Puni inauguration, when we had that massive Women's march, wondering whether the energy that we saw in that march that was followed by marches around the country could possibly be sustained for the next two years, which is the marathon we were going to run until

the next chance to go vote. And the reality is it just grew UM and people marched to the polls in the mid terms and it was an astonishing wave of an election that wiped out the Republican majority in the House. Mitch McConnell's political model is based on fewer people voting. UM. If he can't deprive people of the vote, he knows he loses his majority, he loses his position. The whole business model, because they're relying on a disappearing demographic,

is discouraging people from voting. UH. And our mission ought to be expanding democracy, expanding the franchise, making sure everyone who is legally eligible to participate gets to participate. People who do their time get their franchise restored back to them. People aren't discriminated against based on the color of their skin or that they're working people. And we end this practice of closing down polling stations and urban areas because urban working poor can't go out to the suburbs to

vote somewhere. Um, that is anti democratic. And I think our first act in the new majority with a new president ought to be getting rid of the jerryman or getting rid of these voters disenfranchiset. You know, my district is actually unjerrymandered because we have a commission in California that does in an independent commission, which every state ought to have. No. No, the the Russian infiltration of the US political system, is it still going to be a problem.

In It's still gonna be a problem. You know, the Russians have never stopped interfering with us on social media, trying to divide the country. You know, those efforts began Ineen. They continue through the Trump election with a special tilt in favor of Trump and against Clinton. But they've continued since. And the most profound concern I're frankly going into is something I worried about in as we were watching on the Intelligence Committee the Russians releasing these hacked documents in

real time. I was most concerned that they were going to start releasing forged documents among the real ones. A forged Clinton emails suggesting that Clinton workers were engaged in the illegality, and there would have been no way to prove disprove that in the weeks running up to the election. Today, because of the development of a technology called deep fake, technology that allows you to produce utterly convincing fake video

or fake audio exactly. Um, I'm deeply concerned that the Russians are going to push out a video Joe Biden saying something he never said, or videos of Mayor Pete or Elizabeth warrener Bertie Sanders or anybody else, or just videos, um showing police violence on communities of color, which we have enough of that are authentic, but doing what they did in ten but doing it to much greater effect because now they have these visual tools and they can

insert these into the social media ecosystem, making it difficult to attribute the Russian hand. Um. The power to divide us is now amplified by this new technology, the power to massively disrupt an election. You can imagine if there was a video that emerged of the Democratic nominee three weeks before the election saying something racist or misogynist, or criminal, or or simply disparaging of the voters in a key swing state, and this, this doctored video of Nancy Pelosi

recently gave us a good trial run. And here you have the present pushing that video out on the social media, and it's still up on his social media. Uh. You have the president denying the access Hollywood tape, which is real, pushing out tapes that he knows are doctored. And this is you know what we have one of our experts

before a committee last week testify about. This is what's called the liars dividend, where someone who traffics and untruths has a great advantage in environment which people can't tell what's true anymore. Do you think somebody's gonna shot beating him? Oh? Absolutely, And people should not be discouraged about the opportunity to defeat Donald Trump. He should be defeated. He has historically

low support among the American people. He has never expanded his base of support, he's never bothered to even try so. He is eminently beat able. Now be easy, and we we underestimated him once at our peril um. In terms of the role of the prior presidence, they do have a role to play, but I think they also recognize they can't be the future of the party, and so if they're two out there, then they throw shade on everybody else. And and so I think they try to

pick their battles where they can be helpful. Um. I still believe that our best days are ahead of us, that when this president is gone, the next president can quickly mitigate much of the damage that has been done, can restore our standing in the rest of the world. There are bright days ahead of us, and they're hard to see when you're in the midst of turmoil. You know, I found unlikely inspiration in watching Ken Burns Vietnam documentary, because you see how deeply divided we were in Vietnam.

They were police shooting students on campuses and bombs going off in cities, uh, and horrendous loss of life in Vietnam, And that was a far more divisive and far more deadly period of time for country. Biden said that I was, I was, I was hosting the RFK Human Rights Center Awards. It was like a week or two after the election in November here in New York, huge gang of all

the old grade Kennedy liberals. You know, we're there, and and Biden gets up there in two thousands sixteen, and he says, you think this is the worst time for this country. So this isn't the worst time for this country. And he points the picture goes nine and that was the worst time for this country. You know, Kennedy has killed, King has killed Nixon pulls the stake out of his heart and gets out of the coffin and becomes the president United States. Chicago, all that kind of stiff. He said,

sixty eight, that was a bad year. But also I'll never forget. Clinton said to me just weeks prior, I was on my way to des Moine to be the keynote speaker for the for the Iowa Democratic Convention, and he I said, you have any tips me? And he said, you tell those people down there that that if they think impeachment is their hope, if they're putting all their money on impeachment, if that's their hope about how to change the actions country, and they're mistaken. They got to

get their act together. They've got to rebuild the party, they've got to raise the money, and they gotta vote this guy out of office. In two thousand twenty, he said, don't put your money on impeachment. I think what people really hunger for is uh certainly within the Democratic Party for the Democrats to be just as tough as nails with this guy, to make the most powerful, profound statement about just how disgusting and unfit for office his conduct

has has made him. UM. And people look to impeachment as the most powerful form of censure, and believe me, that resonates with me. There are a few people, I think who feel as passionately as I do about his unfitness for office. Um. At the same time, I think we have to be very disciplined and decide, notwithstanding you know, those uh, overwhelming feelings, Um, is this the right thing for the country? Is this the right thing for us to do? So there is that younger for the most

profound form of censure. And you know, one of the things that Professor Tribe and others are exploring with us is is there a way of using impeachment to censure in a way that doesn't require a vote in the Senate so there is no subsequent acquittal. Uh. And I think we continue to keep our mind open about the

possibilities as we do our work. UM. But but we have to do our work, and I think there's nothing that this President would like more than to be able to say, um, after an acquittal in the Senate, I was vindicated yet again. The reason we have no better running healthcare system than the reason we have no reform of prescription drugs and no infrastructure build and all the rest of this is because Democrats chose to impeach me instead of working together on this. He would love to

to make that argument. Um, we don't want to give um any thought to anything other than you know what's the best thing for the country, and let the chips while where they may, and if that ultimately leads us to impeachment, then we impeach. But if it doesn't, then we keep our focus on our legislative agenda and also exposing the wrongdoing of the presence of the American people know exactly what kind of president they have. That was

Congressman Adam Schiff from the District of California. This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to here's the thing, m