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January 26, 2025

WATCH: Sen Schiff Reacts to Trump’s Illegal Attempt to Fire Inspectors General, Whirlwind First Week

Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined NBC’s Meet the Press for a wide-ranging conversation on the first week of the Trump Administration. In the interview, Schiff discussed Trump’s illegal firing of several inspectors general, cautioned attempts to condition aid to California, and emphasized the economic effects of Trump’s mass deportation policy.

Watch the full video of the interview here

Key Excerpts:

On Trump’s illegal firing of inspectors general: 

[…] I have to say, as someone who introduced the Protecting Our Democracy Act, which was designed in part to protect inspectors general, to write off this clear violation of law by saying, “Well, technically, he broke the law.” Yeah, he broke the law. And not just any law, but a law meant to crowd out waste, fraud, and abuse and yeah, the remedies Congress has. We have the power of the purse. We have the power right now to confirm or not confirm people for Cabinet positions that control agencies or would control agencies whose inspectors general have just been fired. And let’s remember, in his first term, he fired an inspector general for providing whistleblower complaints to Congress. Fired an inspector general for saying the pandemic response, his response had flaws. The American people, if we don’t have good and independent inspectors general, are going to see the swamp refill. They’re going to see rampant waste, fraud. They’re going to see corruption. It may be the president’s goal here, when he’s got a meme coin that’s making him billions, is to remove anyone that’s going to call the public attention to his malfeasance. 

On calls to condition aid to California following the devastating fires: 

That’s just shameful. Americans are hurting right now. When his state was hit by Katrina, I fought to get aid for Katrina. I went with a Congressional Delegation a year later to see how the recovery was going and to raise issues about how slow it was and how we needed to bring more urgency to it. I never even thought for a moment, okay, this is a red state, maybe we shouldn’t provide aid, or maybe we should tie it to some unrelated policy objective. I think it is shameful what he is saying. And let me say this, as a Californian, we have given more to the recovery of other states than any other state in the union. You do not want to go down this road. None of us want to go down this road. And look, I’m glad the president went to California. I urged him to go to California. He did. I felt he could not help but be moved by seeing the scope of the devastation. I think he was moved. But let’s not go down the road of trying to tie unrelated policy matters when people are hurting. 

On the negative economic impact of mass deportations: 

[…] I support the deportation of people who commit violent crime. What I don’t support are these randomized raids on people, that detain American citizens, that detain members of the military. Because this is what we’re seeing happening around the country. We’re seeing a kind of chaos in which, in contradiction to the president’s commitment that he was going to start focusing on violent criminals. They’re just detaining anyone. They’re going into workplaces, and anyone who looks like they should be detained is getting detained without, it seems, rhyme or reason. That doesn’t make sense. I think it’s inhumane. But what’s more, the president also said that his top priority was bringing down the price of things. Mass deportations of farm workers in California, maybe half the workforce, are going to drive food prices through the roof. Mass deportation of construction workers are going to drive housing prices even more through the roof. So which is it going to be? What is this real priority? Is it addressing the economic concerns of Americans, or is it going to be this kind of mass deportation, family separation, randomized raids, which is what we’re seeing? 

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