Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined Crooked Media’s Jane Coaston on What A Day Podcast, to condemn the Trump administration’s disgraceful conduct towards Senator Alex Padilla, break down the lawlessness of President Donald Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles and discuss how the administration’s heartless and indiscriminate immigration policies are hurting families.
Key Excerpts:
On the Trump administration’s disgraceful conduct towards Senator Padilla:
[…] Just watching it was traumatic. He is a wonderful friend and colleague, so well respected in the Senate, and a person of great integrity and decency. And to see him mistreated that way, to see him essentially physically forced out of the room to the ground, arms pinned behind his back. It was disgraceful, and I think it demonstrates just the kind of hostility that the administration has to any form of oversight, the indifference it shows to the historic nature of the separation of power and the co-equal branch of government, that is the Congress of the United States. But just a shocking display, and there needs to be a full investigation of this conduct and an accounting. Kristi Noem, in my view, never should have been appointed that office and ought to resign from that office.
On the lack of condemnation from Republicans on the Trump administration’s treatment of Sen. Padilla:
[…] There absolutely should be consequences for this. Whether there will be consequences will depend a lot on the people who were not on the Senate floor just now, and that is the Republicans. I’ve yet to see a Republican take to the Senate floor to express even the most mouthless concern over what just took place, and instead, we see statements like that issued by the Speaker of the House essentially applauding or approving of the conduct of these this security detail that tackled or brought to the ground a U.S. Senator. So, there should be consequences, whether there are consequences in the era of Donald Trump, when there seems to be no bottom to the floor below which the GOP will go, I really don’t know. I guess time will tell us.
On the need for Americans to speak out:
[…] I think Americans need to recognize that if they’re going to treat a U.S. Senator this way, then what protection could they possibly have? What protection for a farm worker? What protection for a garment worker? What protection for an ordinary U.S. citizen going about their business? What opportunity will they have to be heard? What opportunity will they have if they’re grabbed and tackled to the ground to fend for themselves, to make a case to a judge that they shouldn’t be mistreated in this way? What due process will be offered to anyone? So, this should be alarming to people. And it’s part of a very steady degradation of our democracy, a disrespect of our institutions, attacking anyone who stands in opposition to the president, the kind of drunken arrogance of power that you see exhibited in the White House these days. It is, I think, really a rubicon we are crossing in the history of our democracy.
[…] I think it’s more important than ever that the American people speak out. We cannot be intimidated into silence. So, we need to speak out. We need to protest, we need to do so peacefully. But yes, I think that this is more of a call to action, not less. And yes, we have to be careful, and there are risks from a repressive administration, but the only way we’re going to get through this period as a democracy is if we all play our part. We can’t simply say, “Well, we’re going to leave it to the politicians.” No, all of us in our various circles need to use the influence that we have to defend our colleges and universities, to defend those who practice law and take up unpopular cases before the federal government, to defend our free press and keep it free and yes to speak out on behalf of our friends and our neighbors who are being mistreated and separated from their children and their spouses by the heartless enforcement of this indiscriminate immigration policy. So I agree with Senator Padilla, this is yet another reason why Americans need to speak out.
On Trump administration mobilizing National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles:
[…] It says to me that they’re willing to violate the law. They’re willing to violate court order. They’re willing to do anything in pursuit of more power, in pursuit of their agenda. I think part of what they’re after in Los Angeles with the mobilization of these troops, is to distract from the failure to respond to the primary campaign promise the president made, which was he was going to improve the economy. He was going to bring prices down. He was going to lower the cost of living. Instead, prices have just continued to go up. His tariff policy is in tatters. Our trade partners are not coming to the table for some big, beautiful agreements. They’re boycotting American goods, like Canada is doing. And his big, beautiful bill is in big, bad trouble with a huge price tag that will cost the American people $2.4 trillion in new debt. He’s basically trying to borrow from our kids and our grandkids to fund this tax cut for rich people. So, for Donald Trump, militarizing Los Angeles, holding a birthday military parade for himself, these are desired distractions from the failure of his immigration and economic policies.
On the Trump administration’s reckless immigration raids:
[…] It’s so indiscriminate that they’re picking up citizens and non-citizens alike. And in the case of citizens and we increasingly, are seeing cases every day or every week where a U.S. citizen gets caught in their dragnet. It’s been, in some cases, very difficult for the U.S. citizen to get themselves released. There was someone in Florida, for example, a U.S. citizen, I think it took them days to get out of ICE custody, because when they’re brought into custody, they’re often not given the rights to which they’re entitled. They have little access to the outside world and to even inform their family of where they’ve been taken. In some cases, we’re seeing masked ICE agents run down the streets and grab people. A video footage, for example, from Worcester, Massachusetts, of ICE agents in masks grabbing a woman and her teenage daughter screaming, terrified about what’s happening to her mother. You see that kind of footage, and you wonder, what country is this? Where do they behave like this? This can’t be the United States of America, and yet it is.
People are showing up to take the Oath of Citizenship, which they’ve worked hard for and were excited about, only to be arrested before they could take the Oath of Citizenship. People are paying their taxes, as we encourage people who are undocumented to do, and now the administration is saying they want to look at IRS records and try to identify people who are paying their taxes so they can deport them. What’s the sense in that? But I think it goes back to really the original lie of the Trump campaign. And that was the lie that that everyone coming to the country as an immigrant or migrant was some kind of violent criminal, some rapist or thug or murderer. This was what Trump began telling us the moment he descended that golden escalator in 2015 and now, because his effort to deport people with criminal records isn’t turning up very much, he’s immediately resorted to these indiscriminate raids. Their goal is to deport 3,000 people a day. It doesn’t matter to them who they are, what they do, what they’ve done for the country, what it does to their family, what it does to our communities. They just want to engage in this heartless, indiscriminate policy.
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