Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell to call out Republicans’ refusal to confront President Donald Trump’s comments on Ukraine; express concerns over Kash Patel, the recently confirmed FBI director; and underline the constitutional crisis created by the Trump administration.
View the full interview here.
Key Excerpts:
On the importance of Republican Senate colleagues condemning Trump’s comments on Ukraine:
The way that Trump is denouncing Zelensky, the way he has adopted the Kremlin talking points that somehow Ukraine is to blame for its own invasion. They understand the danger in what Donald Trump is doing and saying, and how it is irrevocably damaging our NATO alliance and our standing in the rest of the world. So, I think that the vast majority of them are in complete agreement with what Thom Tillis said. They just aren’t willing to confront the president. We’re going to have votes on Ukraine tonight as a part of this vote-a-rama that we’re in the middle of. I’ve offered a Ukraine amendment, as have others, to affirm our support for Ukraine. Condemn Putin, and we’ll see – they’ll be tested whether their rhetoric is going to match their votes.
On Patel’s agenda to use the FBI to go after Trump’s enemies:
You rise to the level of your utter sycophancy in the Trump administration. But here’s the thing, I’ve worked with the FBI for decades, ever since I was a federal prosecutor, they’re the premier law enforcement agency. Only in Trump world, a world in which you pardon hundreds of people for beating police officers, and then you purge the FBI agents that pursued them. Only in that kind of world does a Kash Patel become FBI director. But that’s the upside down, terrible world we’re living in at this moment, and Kash Patel has now been given a 10-year term as FBI director. I cannot imagine the damage that he can do if he’s given a decade to do it. And so we find ourselves in really uncharted waters. I think you have to go back to Herbert Hoover to find another FBI director so intent on using the powers of that position to go after president’s enemies. Dangerous ground indeed.
On the severity of Trump’s weaponization of the Department of Justice:
We’ve had a debate about what level of constitutional crisis we’re in, and frankly, I think we’re already there. And yes, it can get worse if they just start ignoring court opinions. But when you have someone who is essentially the president’s Roy Cohn, his hatchet man, now controlling the premier law enforcement agency. When you’ve got Pam Bondi, an election denier as the attorney general. When you’ve got Emil Bove insisting on the firing of prosecutors in New York because they don’t want to dismiss in a corruption case against the mayor for the reason that the mayor is helping the president with his immigration policy. That’s the argument of the Justice Department. And we saw just how dangerously absurd that argument is today when Emil Bove was making the point that, yes, this can go beyond this mayor in New York, basically, they can decide to pursue or not pursue any criminal case, depending on whether an elected official is helping their agenda.
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