“[President Trump] wants to create a climate of fear, and he has done so in six months, which is radically different than the first term.”
New York, NY – U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for a wide-ranging discussion on President Trump casting a climate of fear, the future of the Democratic Party and the need to fight for rapid change, combatting Trump’s personal attacks against him, and congressional Republicans giving up their power to Trump.
Watch his full interview here.
On standing up against Trump’s threats:
[…] I was in Congress for what I don’t know, 20 years before Trump came along, or thereabouts. If I got threatened two or three times in 20 years, that was a lot. If I got threatened two or three times in a week during first Trump, it wasn’t very much. So, under Trump, that has just accelerated. And of course, now it’s just not Democrats getting threatened, it’s Republicans getting threatened. And I have to imagine that there are a bunch of Republicans right now getting threatened over the whole Jeffrey Epstein stuff. So, once you unleash this idea that it’s okay to use political violence and threats of violence, it doesn’t end up discriminating just against one party. Judges are getting threatened. City councilmen are getting threatened. Election workers are getting threatened. And so this is all part of this quite deliberate campaign to frighten people into submission, and the only way to push back on that is to say, piss off. Piss off.
The president, as you know, has been going after me within the last couple of days. Ever since I led his first impeachment, he’s threatened me with jail and prosecution and called me a traitor, accused me of treason, blah, blah, blah. He coerced Republicans into censuring me in the House, and now the latest attack on me.
On being agents of change against the status quo:
[…] I think what’s appealing about AOC, what’s appealing about Bernie and Mamdani, is that they are vigorous challengers against the status quo. They recognize the status quo just sucks for working people, and they’re not afraid to say so. They’re not afraid to confront it. They’re not afraid to put forward bold ideas. And they are exactly who they appear to be. It’s not inauthentic for them. And I think the commonality, frankly, between the success Mamdani had in New York and the fact that Trump won in 2024 is that both of them represent an attack on the status quo.
Now, Trump’s attack on the status quo has just turned the country into this dystopian hellhole at the moment, so I’m not advocating that, but I think because people are so dissatisfied with how difficult it is to afford a place to live or to provide for their kids or access health care, they’re ready to embrace anyone who is a representative of dramatic change. And if we’re going to win the midterms and we’re going to take back the White House, we cannot be seen as the party of the status quo. It’s why we lost the last presidential election, and we damn well have to be out there fighting for rapid change.
On what Democrats need to do to compete in red parts of their state:
[…] One of the things that’s apparent as I visit these deep red parts of California is there’s a cultural divide, as there is in much of the country. There are also divisions over real substantive issues in California, fights over water between farmers and between environmentalists. But a big part of it too, and this, to me, is maybe one of the most important takeaways, is we just haven’t competed there. We haven’t shown up there, we haven’t introduced ourselves. We haven’t tried to make sure that people understand we want to represent them. People aren’t going to vote for you. They’re not going to support you if they think you look down on them or condescend to them, or even worse, you’re not interested and you’re just indifferent to them. So, I think all over the country, Democrats need to be pressing the case in every part of the country, realizing we’re not going to win everyone over, but there are a lot of people we can win over. They are surprised when they meet me. They’ve seen this caricature of me on Fox. They’ve heard only about me from the president, and it’s kind of a revelation when I don’t turn out to have horns. So, this is part of what I think it takes to compete.
On Trump’s strategy of fear:
Fundamentally, it’s different because Donald Trump was much less successful in the first term in creating a climate of fear. This is what he’s after. He wants to make the law firms afraid. He wants to make universities afraid. He wants to make immigrants afraid. He wants to make citizens afraid. He wants to make news organizations, CBS and Paramount, afraid. He wants to make ABC afraid. And he is succeeding. He is succeeding. And more than anything else, he wants to make Republicans in Congress afraid because he wants them to do his will. He wants the judges to be afraid, afraid they’ll get impeached if they cross him, afraid for their own personal safety if they cross him. He wants to create a climate of fear, and he has done so in six months, which is radically different than the first term. In part, it’s different because in the first term, there were at least some people to stand up to him, the Secretary Mattis’s, the John Kelly’s and others that had some stature and who were willing to say, “Mr. President, that’s a stupid ass idea, or that’s an unlawful idea, or I’m not gonna go along with that idea.”
On Congress giving up its power of the purse:
Congress is absolutely giving its power away, and in this case, really the most important power we have, which is the power of the purse. At the end of the day, what power does Congress have to stop a rogue executive, but to defund them? We have the power if we use it to say, “Hey, Donald Trump. We’re not going to let you lay off all these people because we’re not going to fund all these things you want to do. We’re not going to let you just grab people off the street, using agents and masks, demanding people’s papers, citizens and non-citizens alike. We’re going to defund you. But if we don’t use that power, the president can run rogue. Now, why would we give up that power? Why would Republicans in particular give up that power? Because they’re worried about losing their own personal power, that is their own personal office.
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