Washington D.C. — U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer to discuss Ukraine’s minerals deal with the U.S., President Donald Trump’s recent comments at the first Cabinet meeting with Elon Musk, and the impacts of GOP budget proposals.
View the full interview here.
Key Excerpts:
On President Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine and transactional minerals deal with Ukraine:
[…] This is an effort to pressure Zelenskyy into giving up something for nothing. And I have to say this, on top of the resolution at the United Nations where the United States sided with Russia, betrayed Ukraine, is one of the most shameful incidents in modern history. I think millions and millions and millions of Americans watching this not only disagree with the president, but maybe for the first time, are just downright ashamed of the president because we have betrayed an ally. We’ve not only betrayed an ally, but we’ve betrayed our principles. Are we to be nothing except transactional now? We have no commitment to democracy, no commitment to our allies. It’s all going to be about the money that seems to be Donald Trump’s orientation, but what a sad chapter of our history.
[…]
I have to imagine the only thing in it for Zelenskyy is maybe trying to improve somewhat his relationship with this hostile U.S. President who seems so beholden to Vladimir Putin. Frankly, I think it’s a difficult errand for Zelenskyy. He has been really Churchillian in his leadership through these three years of war. Ukraine has made just tremendous sacrifices and to be reduced to this by his most important ally, the United States, coming hat in hand with some kind of fig leaf offer of the mineral wealth of his country in exchange for little or nothing — it is really just tawdry. But it is what this administration has reduced our allies to.
On the deliberate action to demean the federal workforce:
[…] I think President Trump’s description of bloated and fat may be a good description of the White House and its modus operandi, but what this really is, is just an effort to denigrate and demean people who are working hard. Some have worked as a career in the service of the country. If you sent that very same memo to Elon Musk, “What did you do last week?” His answers might be, “Well, we fired a bunch of people working to stop the spread of Ebola, and we fired a bunch of people working to stop the spread of bird flu.” That’s what he’s been up to, and frankly, if that were any other federal employee, they would deserve to be fired. But I think this is just an effort to as bullies do, try to bully people working for the federal government.
On the detrimental impacts of the House budget resolution:
[…] I think we may be headed for a Trump shutdown. They very much don’t have their act together. And here you have the House saying, basically, “Our way or the highway or we’re going to shut down the government.” That would be adding more catastrophe, another Trump shutdown. We went through that in the first Trump administration. But I think they’ve got a very narrow margin in the House, a bit bigger margin in the Senate, and their goals are internally conflicting. They say they want to address deficits and debt, and yet they’re pushing a tax cut that will only explode our deficit and debt, and you just can’t square that circle.
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