“Chaos seems to be the watchword with this administration. But the chaos is not a consequence of this. The chaos is the goal. The chaos is the purpose.”
Washington, D.C. — Last night, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) delivered remarks on the Senate floor to oppose the nomination of Russ Vought, President Donald Trump’s pick for director of the Office of Management and Budget. His wide-ranging speech highlighted the administration’s reckless, dangerous, and illegal actions over the last weeks, and the necessity of reigning in Donald Trump’s unchecked power.
Watch Schiff’s full remarks HERE. Download remarks HERE.
Key Excerpts:
On warning against the confirmation of Russ Vought:
But Donald Trump can’t do this on his own. He needs enablers, enablers to subvert our laws, enablers to divert congressionally approved funds. Sure, everyone knows Elon Musk. But it’s not just Elon Musk, and today, we consider the nomination of the system’s engineer to lead the Office of Management and Budget, probably the most important agency no one has heard of. And that engineer, that architect of this effort to strip the country of its resources so that it can be plundered by the president and his wealthy friends. The architect, the engineer of this, the one who will make the trains run on time. The guy that stops the train to allow the highway robbery of that train is a man named Russ Vought. We all recall Project 2025. Russ Vought helped to write it. That funding freeze? Vought helped orchestrate the plan for it. And the slew of outrageous, dangerous actions taken by this administration over the past several weeks were in many ways a direct result of a Vought and his plan to dismantle and destroy the government and the service of Donald Trump and his wealthy friends.
One analysis found that two thirds of the executive orders Trump has signed come from, that’s right, Project 2025. Russ Vought doesn’t believe in government except as a vehicle to take from the poor and take from the middle class and give to the wealthy people who should be running everything. He doesn’t believe in the simple idea that we the people compromise, or we the people compose our institutions. We the people are the government. A government that’s supposed to be for the people, not for a handful of very wealthy people. No. Ross Vought believes in dismantling that government of the people, piece by piece, brick by brick, until what remains is a hollowed out bureaucracy that serves the interests of the wealthy and abandons everyone else. To make it so small they can drown it in a bathtub. Because that’s what this is all about. This is all about taking the nation’s resources for themselves. It is about using the infrastructure, the architecture of the government to enrich themselves. This is about plunder. That’s what they’re trying to do.
On the results of Trump’s unchecked power:
Chaos seems to be the watchword with this administration. But the chaos is not a consequence of this. The chaos is the goal. The chaos is the purpose. By throwing everything at the wall they can create confusion. They hope to muddy the waters while opening the floodgates. Unconstitutional executive orders. Illegal memos. Illegally accessing private citizens’ data. You name it. The scope and speed of these actions is almost impossible to comprehend. And the impact is incalculable. This is all part of a larger effort to consolidate power – every possible power – in the control of one man … well, maybe two men … so they can plunder the country to benefit themselves and their billionaire buddies.
On the federal funding freeze hurting Californians:
We saw hospitals wondering whether they would get funding to keep their clinic doors open. We saw parents wondering whether their child care would be available. Seniors wondering whether they would have the services that they needed. And for what? Once again, this is an effort to prepare to raid the Treasury, to take the resources that belong to the American people and use them to fund a massive tax cut for those who don’t need it. Now I represent a state that has been battered by natural disaster, so I take this very personally, this freeze on federal funding, because my constituents need the help of FEMA. They need the help of the SBA. They need to know that, as the government has been there for every other state in a natural disaster, it will be there for us. And the idea of freezing that funding and inhibiting that recovery so that there can be just a bit more money for Donald Trump and Elon Musk and his allies is anathema to my constituents, and it should be unacceptable for all the rest of us.
On the snowball effect of Trump and his loyalists’ actions:
The moment you say it’s okay for them to violate the law to shut down this one agency you have said it is okay for them to violate the law and shut down anything. Anything. If they can do this with USAID. If they can do this with the Department of Ed. If they can do it with the Department of Ed, they can do it with Head Start. If they can do with Head Start, they can do with Medicaid. If they can do with Medicaid, they can do with Social Security. They can do anything. USAID was established by the United States Congress. It cannot and should not be eliminated on the whims of a president or his unelected billionaire friend. Shutting down USAID or pausing its work will have devastating global and potentially irreversible consequences, but the biggest consequence will be to us. It is the world’s largest provider of humanitarian aid, and through it, the United States saves countless lives every year.
On ensuring we uphold the foundation of our Constitution:
I think a lot of Americans are wondering now whether the Constitution is so brilliant after all, whether it is adequate to meet this moment, a moment that our founders really anticipated, when we would have a demagogue who would ride the whirlwind of the confusion that he sows. Well, I think it is a brilliant constitution. I think it’s the best in the world. But it’s not self-effectuating. It depends on all of us. To work, it depends on all of us. The genius of the Constitution is not that we are today where we are where we have a Supreme Court that said the president is above the law. We have a president acting like he’s above the law. We have the administration bringing in unelected billionaires to take data and who knows what else. We have terrible national security breaches and not a murmur of dissent about them.
The genius of the Constitution is not that this is happening, but that it was forestalled until now, that we got through these more than two centuries without confronting this. But this is where we are, and this will be the real test of our Constitution, what it will mean in this moment.
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