Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Since January, Congressman Adam Schiff of California has been the
Speaker 1: chair of the House Intelligence Committee. That position has made
Speaker 1: him a target of the President and his allies. It
Speaker 1: is an occupational hazard when you have the power to
Speaker 1: subpoena Trump business associates and two thousand sixteen campaign officials.
Speaker 1: This made him a hero to those who feel the
Speaker 1: President and the Russians have escaped accountability. The attacks went
Speaker 1: into overdrive when Schiff refused to stop investigating Russian election
Speaker 1: interference even after Muller released his report a decade ago.
Speaker 1: Schiff called House Intelligence quote the least partisan and probably
Speaker 1: the most productive of all the committees on the Hill unquote.
Speaker 1: This year, every one of his Republican Committee colleagues called
Speaker 1: for his resignation. This month, the President's re election campaign
Speaker 1: started selling shirts featuring shifts distorted face. But when we
Speaker 1: spoke last week, it was Iran on everyone's mind. They
Speaker 1: had just bombed two oil tankers near their waters to
Speaker 1: show their power over global trade. America almost didn't get
Speaker 1: the advantage of Adam Shift's service, at least in Congress
Speaker 1: in college, he agonized over his life path. Would it
Speaker 1: be law and policy or medicine. I procrastinated as long
Speaker 1: as you possibly could. I took the M cats, I
Speaker 1: took the L SATs. I applied to medical school. In
Speaker 1: law school, I waited literally until I could not wait
Speaker 1: any longer. And I still remember telling my folks that
Speaker 1: I had decided to go to law school, and how
Speaker 1: I told them and what their reaction was, Um, because
Speaker 1: oh horrified. Um, you know why they were counting on
Speaker 1: my son the doctor. Oh you know, to get a
Speaker 1: Jewish mother that close to my son, the doctrine that
Speaker 1: snatched away as a very cruel thing to do. You know.
Speaker 1: My brother had exactly the opposite experience. I got into
Speaker 1: Cal got into acting school. Um went to acting school.
Speaker 1: My parents were absolutely mortified. He was at acting school
Speaker 1: for about two weeks and he hated it, and he
Speaker 1: was very upset that he had turned down col. But
Speaker 1: Cal never got the rejection letter. So my mother called
Speaker 1: Berkeley and it was too late for him to fly
Speaker 1: up to registers, so she went to Berkeley and registered
Speaker 1: for him. Um. But I remember standing in the den
Speaker 1: of our house and telling my folks that I had
Speaker 1: made my decision, and they were quite stoic. You know,
Speaker 1: why is that? And I said, well, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I think medicine is very interesting, satisfying. But when I
Speaker 1: pick up Time magazine, I never flipped to what's new
Speaker 1: in medicine section. I want to read about what's going
Speaker 1: on in the world. It didn't occur to me until
Speaker 1: midway through my first year of law school that I
Speaker 1: never flipped to the what's new in the law suction either.
Speaker 1: But um, was politics on your mind even then. I
Speaker 1: don't know if politics per se in terms of my
Speaker 1: running for office, was so much on my mind, although
Speaker 1: I do attribute a lot of my interest in government
Speaker 1: service to growing up in Boston. We lived in Boston
Speaker 1: until my father, who was in the rag businesses he
Speaker 1: called it, was transferred out West. Um. You know, growing up,
Speaker 1: you know, during the nineteen sixties when the Kennedy's were
Speaker 1: in the ether. Um. You know, I grew up thinking that, uh,
Speaker 1: public office, public service was a noble calling. So I
Speaker 1: think that was sort of the background. But when I
Speaker 1: made decision to go to law school, I was thinking
Speaker 1: more that I wanted to work just in the area
Speaker 1: of public policy, even if I didn't know exactly where.
Speaker 1: I remember I went to g W and I walked
Speaker 1: into the dorm room and one guy was unpacked his
Speaker 1: luggage and I said, I'm Jeff, I'm from New Jersey,
Speaker 1: and uh, what are you here to study? As he said,
Speaker 1: political science? I said the other he said, yeah, he said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be the president of the United States. We
Speaker 1: were in a six man sweet number three walks in
Speaker 1: counter three. He says, I'm going to be the President
Speaker 1: of United States. Everybody went to GW. Everybody went down
Speaker 1: there to do internships in the Congress, the White House
Speaker 1: Social Secretary's Office. At internships you can apply for. Do
Speaker 1: you feel that some people just want nothing to do
Speaker 1: with that anymore? For running for office? You know, I
Speaker 1: felt during the Obama administration and during the first Obama
Speaker 1: campaign that a lot of young people were inspired the
Speaker 1: same way Democrats have been inspired by Kennedy and Republicans
Speaker 1: have been inspired by Reagan. Now I think that they're uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the vast reaction is just revulsion at what
Speaker 1: they see going on. The one positive that comes out
Speaker 1: of it, though, is that people have recognized that they
Speaker 1: can no longer sit on the sidelines so I can't
Speaker 1: tell you how many people have told me of the
Speaker 1: last couple of years that they have never been politically
Speaker 1: involved before, but now they realize they have to be. Uh.
Speaker 1: The new class of members is the strongest class I
Speaker 1: think we've ever had. I will hold it up to
Speaker 1: the post Watergate class any day of the week. Uh.
Speaker 1: These people were motivated because they saw what was going
Speaker 1: on in in Washington, and we're so distressed that the
Speaker 1: direction administration wanted to do something about the present circumstances. UM.
Speaker 1: When Iran happens, when the bombs, when the tanker was bombed. UM,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming you get a phone call, someone's calling you,
Speaker 1: you get briefed, and some of the information comes to
Speaker 1: Is that how it works, you know, Sometimes that's the
Speaker 1: way it works. Uh. There are times where I'm informed
Speaker 1: before the public if we're going to take action somewhere,
Speaker 1: I may get a call and a heads up about
Speaker 1: what we're going to do. UM. There are times when
Speaker 1: I'm informed at the same time as the public. And
Speaker 1: in the case of the attacks on the ships, UM,
Speaker 1: I certainly had the opportunity to sit down with people
Speaker 1: in the intelligence community to get a full debriefing. Um
Speaker 1: and you know, it's a deeply distressing and escutory situation
Speaker 1: there right now. Uh, you know, I don't have any
Speaker 1: question that Iran was responsible. At the same time, it's
Speaker 1: also quite clear that they have been so ramping up
Speaker 1: the pressure on Iran that the Iranian response was all
Speaker 1: too predictable. And now that doesn't certainly justify what Iran
Speaker 1: is doing. And we ought to be marshaling the international
Speaker 1: community to protect freedom of navigation. But we can see
Speaker 1: how our allies are not rallying to our side here.
Speaker 1: Many are doubting what the President and the Secretary of
Speaker 1: State have to say when the evidence is quite clear.
Speaker 1: For those allies of ours who continue to doubt, specifically
Speaker 1: Germany and Japan who continued to doubt our intelligence about Iran,
Speaker 1: what would you tell them, Well, I have to think
Speaker 1: that if we have shared intelligence with them, and I
Speaker 1: would imagine that we are, that it's less an issue
Speaker 1: of whether they really question Iran's responsibility, but rather they're
Speaker 1: worried about going um full skill in hand in hand
Speaker 1: with Donald Trump on a path towards possible conflict with Iran.
Speaker 1: They don't want to see another war with Iran, so
Speaker 1: they're deeply suspicious and skeptical of the President of Bolton
Speaker 1: of Pompeo because they knew all along and felt all
Speaker 1: along and said all along. If you leave the agreement,
Speaker 1: if you take these other steps, if you designate the
Speaker 1: r GC as a terrorist organization, if you constrict Iran
Speaker 1: with these sanctions, you're you're cornering a dangerous animal and
Speaker 1: it's going to lash out. And that's exactly where we are.
Speaker 1: What I think the Administration needs to be doing is
Speaker 1: working with our allies to figure out a way to
Speaker 1: protect the navigation in the straits of Hormones, to de
Speaker 1: escalate the situation, to keep Iran from going back and
Speaker 1: and beginning in Richmond again, uh and and working constructively
Speaker 1: with our allies. And you know, the convincing, frankly, is
Speaker 1: a lot less to do with the intelligence. The convincing
Speaker 1: is that the administration doesn't want war with Iran, is
Speaker 1: prepared to work with our allies to try to avoid that.
Speaker 1: And now Iran is saying that you know, they're going
Speaker 1: to leave the agreement, They're going to start enriching iranium,
Speaker 1: which was also all too predictable. We reneged on the
Speaker 1: agreement when they were complying, and we're trying to get
Speaker 1: Europe to also leave the deal. Why should we be
Speaker 1: surprised when Iran does? But where does that leave us?
Speaker 1: This is the deep concern right now, which is it's
Speaker 1: putting us on a path the conflict. You've been in
Speaker 1: the Congress now for eighteen years, nineteen years. I remember
Speaker 1: when I was studying in politics in Washington. They had
Speaker 1: that great line with the Southern Senator. His line was,
Speaker 1: I have the least amount of high regard from my
Speaker 1: colleague from Pennsylvania. What I mean, the least amount of
Speaker 1: hire we go, you'd say in attacking him, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the gloves are on and everybody's a little
Speaker 1: more polite. But it seems to outside is that it's
Speaker 1: so different now when the Republican members of your committee
Speaker 1: vote for you to resign, does that make it tough
Speaker 1: for you went to the room and talk to them
Speaker 1: the next day? It does? You know? I think that
Speaker 1: ever since the now infamous midnight run where our chairman
Speaker 1: went somewhere in the middle of the night and said
Speaker 1: he had access to classified information that showed an Obama
Speaker 1: conspiracy against the Trump administration that he had to rush
Speaker 1: and present to the White House, and we learned that
Speaker 1: it had actually gotten this information from the White House
Speaker 1: and it was bogus. Um. It destroyed the comedy on
Speaker 1: our committee, and at that time he was forced to
Speaker 1: step down. I think this was sort of his chance
Speaker 1: at payback. But on the issues not involving Russia, on
Speaker 1: the threat from Iran and China, the challenge of Venezuela
Speaker 1: and other places around the world, are analysis of our
Speaker 1: intelligence agencies and are we investing the right amounts and
Speaker 1: human intelligence versus signals intelligence. All of that work still
Speaker 1: goes on in a very nonpartisan way in our committee.
Speaker 1: We we managed to compartmentalize our differences on Russia. Uh.
Speaker 1: And those differences are profound. But on the other issues
Speaker 1: we're able to work together. Um. And that's the good news.
Speaker 1: But yes, that professional Uh. You know, I think we
Speaker 1: we all recognize that the job is too big and
Speaker 1: too important to allow differences, even very severe ones over Russia,
Speaker 1: to interfere with the other work of the committee. UM.
Speaker 1: But yes, it makes it very difficult when, in my
Speaker 1: view of the Republicans, our committee view themselves as um,
Speaker 1: a part of Giuliani's defense team. UH. And when you
Speaker 1: have people who are supposed to be conducting an objective
Speaker 1: investigation acting as defense counsel. Um. It certainly makes it
Speaker 1: difficult to work together. Uh. Um you know, I would
Speaker 1: say in terms of the partisanship in the House, in
Speaker 1: the relationship between members they were over the last couple
Speaker 1: of decades, uh, in a period of decline through forces,
Speaker 1: obviously having nothing to do with Trump Initially. I think
Speaker 1: the the way that the media has uh stratified, where um,
Speaker 1: people who are conservative tune into Fox, that people liberal
Speaker 1: turn into MSNBC, and those who weren't sure what CNN
Speaker 1: people were choosing the news they wanted to hear. That
Speaker 1: was a profound departure from what had been the case before.
Speaker 1: UM when as I remember in college, rushing home to
Speaker 1: see Walter Cronkite's last broadcast that were sort of a
Speaker 1: broad agreement on a set of facts, and it was
Speaker 1: like I was a John Chancellor man. UM. So the
Speaker 1: change in the nature media, I think, accelerated the divisions.
Speaker 1: Then the change in the way campaigns are funded, where
Speaker 1: a lot of the power left the parties and left
Speaker 1: the building and went to these groups that were on
Speaker 1: the far left of the far right. UM. All of
Speaker 1: that contributed to a worsening of relations among members. Uh.
Speaker 1: But I have to say it took a precipitous fall
Speaker 1: when Donald Trump took office, and it's not going to
Speaker 1: change as long as he's there. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: the first president of my lifetime who I think gets
Speaker 1: up in the morning determined to find new and better
Speaker 1: ways to divide us. Uh. And it's really true that
Speaker 1: the president does set the tone. Uh. And the tone
Speaker 1: here is one of of just bitter hostility. Yeah. All
Speaker 1: I have with these lame analogies like the wicked Witch
Speaker 1: of the West, where everyone's just cowering in fear. Do
Speaker 1: you sense from your colleagues that some quotation of them
Speaker 1: really are onto him, but they just have to suck
Speaker 1: it up and take Oh without a doubt. I mean,
Speaker 1: I would have to say the vast majority of them
Speaker 1: don't like what he's doing to the party, don't like
Speaker 1: what he's doing to the country. They will express their
Speaker 1: private misgiving. Um. I'm frankly fed up with private misgivings.
Speaker 1: I think they need to speak out, um, but they're
Speaker 1: afraid to. Uh. You know, those that do, um, like
Speaker 1: Mark Sandford, Carolina, get attacked and tweeted against and they
Speaker 1: lose their primary justin Amash. You know, the president and
Speaker 1: his son are coming after him, um, and so they're
Speaker 1: just not willing to risk it. They think they want
Speaker 1: to write it out if they can. And I do
Speaker 1: think that when this chapter of history has written, some
Speaker 1: of the most damning language will be reserved for the
Speaker 1: GOP members of Commress that refused to stand up to him.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is someone calling the press the enemy
Speaker 1: of the people, trying to um, do away with the
Speaker 1: Congress's power of the purse by declaring non existent emergencies. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, someone who is denigrating judges based on their ethnicity.
Speaker 1: I mean, the list goes on and on. Um. You know.
Speaker 1: The the reaction, for example, just the other day to
Speaker 1: the recommend nation by not Special Council Mother Mueller a
Speaker 1: different Special Council's office that kelley On and Conway should
Speaker 1: be relieved of her post for violations of the hatch Ack.
Speaker 1: Her reaction, you know, was blah blah blah. In other words,
Speaker 1: who cares about ethics or who even cares about the law.
Speaker 1: We can do what we want, um. I mean in
Speaker 1: the in the face of that, yes, I mean the
Speaker 1: face of that, to uh, to remain quiet, too, to
Speaker 1: keep misgivings to oneself. I just think it's profoundly unpatriotic.
Speaker 1: And I don't know why they wanted the job to
Speaker 1: begin with. Those folks that you were talking about, that
Speaker 1: you met in college who wanted to be president, nited
Speaker 1: States or came to Washington to be interns and were idealistic,
Speaker 1: you know, someone in the GOP and some went to
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. You know, where are those idealists in
Speaker 1: the GOP? Where? You know, where are the people that
Speaker 1: espoused family values and free trade and all those other
Speaker 1: things that the GOP was supposed to stand for. It's
Speaker 1: becau I'm a cult of personality around the president, and
Speaker 1: it's not adequate to say, you know, we're going to
Speaker 1: hunker down and wait it out. I really think that
Speaker 1: the country needs people on both parties to be speaking out. Um,
Speaker 1: what are the policies that aren't getting done that concerns
Speaker 1: you the most? Well, there's a lengthy list, and you
Speaker 1: know this is the the you know, one of the
Speaker 1: terrible tragedies of where we are, which is, um, it's
Speaker 1: not as if all the other problems are just standing still.
Speaker 1: While we self immolate with this presidency. UM. There are
Speaker 1: any number of unmet needs that we could be addressing
Speaker 1: in Congress, and we have passed any number of really
Speaker 1: significant and vital bills, bills to address the issue of
Speaker 1: gun safety, like passing universal background checks. We have passed
Speaker 1: legislation to do away with the gerrymander, to make election
Speaker 1: day and national holiday and take dark money out of
Speaker 1: the political process. We passed legislation to guarantee equal will
Speaker 1: pay for equal work UH, and legislation to try to
Speaker 1: raise wages, and legislation to try to protect people's healthcare.
Speaker 1: All of this has past the House and record speed UH,
Speaker 1: and has gone nowhere in the Senate. Now, there are
Speaker 1: two problems in the Senate. UM. One is Mitch McConnell
Speaker 1: Republicans won't act on in this legislation. The other, of course,
Speaker 1: is the president and and so all of these issues
Speaker 1: are are unfortunately languishing and UH. And you know what
Speaker 1: that means is the only legislating that gets done is
Speaker 1: the most basic legislating to keep the government running, UH,
Speaker 1: to pass a budget for the coming year, and generally
Speaker 1: a lot of that is just to keep the government
Speaker 1: on autopilot, where you're not even setting new priorities for spending,
Speaker 1: you're just doing literally the lowest common denominator. And meanwhile, UH,
Speaker 1: there are huge problems not just at home but around
Speaker 1: the world that we're not addressed. The very first hearing
Speaker 1: that we had in the Intelligence Committee when I became
Speaker 1: chairman was not on Russia or China or Iran, but
Speaker 1: it was on the rise authoritarianism around the world. Uh,
Speaker 1: the United States should be standing up to these autocrats,
Speaker 1: but instead we see the autocrats really on the march,
Speaker 1: on the rise. And not just in Russia, but we
Speaker 1: see totalitarianism taking even deeper root in China through the
Speaker 1: use of this new UH digital technology, big data analytics,
Speaker 1: ubiquitous CCTV cameras. But we also see increasing authoritarianism in
Speaker 1: Turkey and the Philippines, in Egypt and Hungary, the rise
Speaker 1: of the far right parties in Poland and in Austria,
Speaker 1: and in Germany and France. UM, and these are big
Speaker 1: challenges to the very idea of democracy that our country
Speaker 1: should be taking on our present should be the champion
Speaker 1: of democracy. But of course none of this has happened.
Speaker 1: While we um deal with this, you know, completely self
Speaker 1: absorbed president who seems uncomfortable in a company of other
Speaker 1: Democrats and only comfortable with other autocrats. So the opportunity
Speaker 1: costs are tremendous while we confront this presidency. House Intelligence
Speaker 1: Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. One witness recently called by Congress
Speaker 1: about the Muller Report was Richard Nixon's White House Council
Speaker 1: John Deane. Maybe they'd heard our conversation about impeaching Trump
Speaker 1: two years ago. I think it's a an appropriate path
Speaker 1: because it's a constitutional path. The system is designed to
Speaker 1: deal with the president who is not uh playing the
Speaker 1: games it's supposed to be played, and that's a determination
Speaker 1: made by the House of Representatives, which is the closest
Speaker 1: to the people. My full interview with John Deane is
Speaker 1: in our archives that here's the thing, Dot Org. This
Speaker 1: is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: As the chairman of one of the most important committees
Speaker 1: investigating the president, Congressman Adam Schiff's reading of the Muller
Speaker 1: Report has real world consequences. Well, I think he has
Speaker 1: certainly laid out the case without calling for impeachment, and
Speaker 1: I think Mueller made made a couple of decisions. First,
Speaker 1: he made the decision to follow the Office Legal Council
Speaker 1: opinion that he says you can't indict a sitting president. Now,
Speaker 1: I think that OLC opinion is flawed. Um. And and
Speaker 1: by the way, you know, when Mueller said during his
Speaker 1: press conference the other day that it would be unconstitutional
Speaker 1: to indict the president, that really gives a weight to
Speaker 1: the OLC opinion that I don't believe it deserves. This
Speaker 1: is just the opinion of lawyers who occupy that office
Speaker 1: at any given time. It's not a Supreme Court case.
Speaker 1: It's not in the Constitution. And I think, in particular
Speaker 1: on the issue whether you can indict a president and
Speaker 1: defer the prosecution until they leave office, that where there's
Speaker 1: a situation where the running of the statute limitations may
Speaker 1: effectively mean that a person can avoid justice. Um, that
Speaker 1: is a far more important consideration than the stigma of
Speaker 1: an indictment where you don't effectively give the person a
Speaker 1: means to clear their name until they leave office. So
Speaker 1: I don't agree with the logic of the OLC opinion,
Speaker 1: But nonetheless I'm not surprised that he would follow it.
Speaker 1: It does follow from that though, and if you are
Speaker 1: going to feel bound by the OLC opinion that you
Speaker 1: can't indict the sitting president, the two other things are
Speaker 1: also true, which is you can't say, as bar would
Speaker 1: suggest that but for the policy, I would have indicted
Speaker 1: the president, because then you're basically casting the same stigma
Speaker 1: over the person. But I think it also meant for
Speaker 1: Bob Mueller that if he wasn't going to say that
Speaker 1: he should indict, it was also not going to say
Speaker 1: that you should impeach. But rather, here is the evidence, Congress.
Speaker 1: There is a remedy if you think it appropriate. And
Speaker 1: it's not my position to tell you whether that is so.
Speaker 1: But here's the evidence, preserving it for you to do
Speaker 1: with as you see fit. I'm also preserving it for
Speaker 1: the Justice Department for when the president leaves office. Uh,
Speaker 1: they'll have to determine whether he should be indicted then. Um.
Speaker 1: But it certainly I think lays out the witnesses a
Speaker 1: lot of the testimony in some reform that Congress should
Speaker 1: be bringing before the American people, whether that's in an
Speaker 1: oversight proceeding or an impeachment proceeding. Now, I take the
Speaker 1: view that we should begin with an oversight proceeding and
Speaker 1: see where that leads us. UH, And we are now
Speaker 1: starting to bring witnesses in. We had a hearing just
Speaker 1: last week on volume one of the Mulla Report with
Speaker 1: counterintelligence experts to talk about the counter intelligence and aspects
Speaker 1: of the investigation. UM. That is, people that may be
Speaker 1: compromised within the Trump administration and what danger that poses
Speaker 1: to American security. So you know, he certainly I think
Speaker 1: did a profound service and what he did H and
Speaker 1: left basically passed the baton onto Congress. Pelosi remains unconvinced.
Speaker 1: She does not think he should be impeached. Can you
Speaker 1: say that you agree with that, you disagree with that.
Speaker 1: I do agree with her. And this is a if
Speaker 1: we were to embark on it, a very divisive process
Speaker 1: for the country h and a wrenching process for the country,
Speaker 1: and one where we know where we end up, which
Speaker 1: is an acquittal in the Senate UM. And I think
Speaker 1: before we embark on that we need to know for
Speaker 1: sure this is the right thing to do. Now. I
Speaker 1: think there are another ber of factors UM. In my view,
Speaker 1: and I think the Speaker probably shares this view. The
Speaker 1: man is unfit for office. He demonstrates that every day,
Speaker 1: demonstrated it yet again when he said that, yeah, I
Speaker 1: might take foreign help again. I don't know that I
Speaker 1: need to call the FBI. Um. He's either learned nothing
Speaker 1: over the last two years or he's learned exactly the
Speaker 1: wrong lesson, which is I can do whatever I want
Speaker 1: and there's no consequence. Um. But I I think the
Speaker 1: concern is that we occupy all of the nation's time
Speaker 1: for the next year impeaching the president resulting in an acquittal,
Speaker 1: we then have a precedent that this conduct and adjudication
Speaker 1: that this conduct is not impeachable, and we're we're between
Speaker 1: the horns of this dilemma. That is, if we don't impeach,
Speaker 1: what are we saying about this conduct and whether it
Speaker 1: is compatible with office? But if we do a peach
Speaker 1: and it leads to an adjudication that it's not impeachable,
Speaker 1: where does that leave us? And UM, you know, I
Speaker 1: think that's the difficult dilemma At this point. I think
Speaker 1: we flesh out the evidence, we bring in the witnesses,
Speaker 1: we get the documents, we make the case to the
Speaker 1: public um, and we see where that leads us, along
Speaker 1: with the presidents continuing conduct and it may lead us
Speaker 1: to impeachment. But I'm not there yet. I don't think
Speaker 1: the speakers here there yet, and I don't think most
Speaker 1: of the Democrats and Congress are there yet. But I'll
Speaker 1: tell you that President is working hard to get us there.
Speaker 1: Interesting you see that that he's trying to bating people
Speaker 1: because perhaps, in his estimation, starting impeachment proceedings works well
Speaker 1: for him. You know, I think that, and this is
Speaker 1: just speculation obviously on my part, but I don't think
Speaker 1: the President personally wants to be impeached. I think, um,
Speaker 1: he doesn't want the stigma being one of the few
Speaker 1: presidents in history to be impeached. I think there are
Speaker 1: people around him who want him to be impeached because
Speaker 1: they feel politically it's advantageous that if this is all
Speaker 1: about impeachment, then they have a chance to win. If
Speaker 1: this is actually about anything policy wise, then they're on
Speaker 1: losing ground because of course they've done nothing but a
Speaker 1: and this tax cut h and our deficits of just
Speaker 1: mushroomed and working people have been made no better through it.
Speaker 1: So they don't have much to run on. But if
Speaker 1: they can run against impeachment, I think some of the
Speaker 1: Bannon oriented people probably think it's a pretty good idea.
Speaker 1: I'm even more neurotic. I mean, I'm not that you
Speaker 1: are neurotic. I am neurotic about this. I thought that
Speaker 1: their strategy was the Republicans would kind of back off
Speaker 1: on their rhetoric until after they've crossed the halfway mark,
Speaker 1: so that Pence was then LBJ. The Pence was entitled
Speaker 1: to ten years in office. See we get the remainder
Speaker 1: of Trump's term and two full terms of his own.
Speaker 1: You really are dark. I thought that was the strategy,
Speaker 1: give Mike Pence ten years in office. But when that wave,
Speaker 1: that remarkable wave in the last election, the Democratic take
Speaker 1: over the House, do you feel that that engine is
Speaker 1: a lot of times you win the first set and
Speaker 1: as six out and then you lose the second one
Speaker 1: goes all your chi goes out of you. You know,
Speaker 1: are the are the Democratic the D Triple C and
Speaker 1: all of their minions. Are they still on the balls
Speaker 1: of their feet raising money for the next h Yeah?
Speaker 1: I know the fundraising is going really well. I mean
Speaker 1: it's obviously a constant effort, but it's going very well. Um.
Speaker 1: I remember after that Puni inauguration, when we had that
Speaker 1: massive Women's march, wondering whether the energy that we saw
Speaker 1: in that march that was followed by marches around the
Speaker 1: country could possibly be sustained for the next two years,
Speaker 1: which is the marathon we were going to run until
Speaker 1: the next chance to go vote. And the reality is
Speaker 1: it just grew UM and people marched to the polls
Speaker 1: in the mid terms and it was an astonishing wave
Speaker 1: of an election that wiped out the Republican majority in
Speaker 1: the House. Mitch McConnell's political model is based on fewer
Speaker 1: people voting. UM. If he can't deprive people of the vote,
Speaker 1: he knows he loses his majority, he loses his position.
Speaker 1: The whole business model, because they're relying on a disappearing demographic,
Speaker 1: is discouraging people from voting. UH. And our mission ought
Speaker 1: to be expanding democracy, expanding the franchise, making sure everyone
Speaker 1: who is legally eligible to participate gets to participate. People
Speaker 1: who do their time get their franchise restored back to them.
Speaker 1: People aren't discriminated against based on the color of their
Speaker 1: skin or that they're working people. And we end this
Speaker 1: practice of closing down polling stations and urban areas because
Speaker 1: urban working poor can't go out to the suburbs to
Speaker 1: vote somewhere. Um, that is anti democratic. And I think
Speaker 1: our first act in the new majority with a new
Speaker 1: president ought to be getting rid of the jerryman or
Speaker 1: getting rid of these voters disenfranchiset. You know, my district
Speaker 1: is actually unjerrymandered because we have a commission in California
Speaker 1: that does in an independent commission, which every state ought
Speaker 1: to have. No. No, the the Russian infiltration of the
Speaker 1: US political system, is it still going to be a problem.
Speaker 1: In It's still gonna be a problem. You know, the
Speaker 1: Russians have never stopped interfering with us on social media,
Speaker 1: trying to divide the country. You know, those efforts began Ineen.
Speaker 1: They continue through the Trump election with a special tilt
Speaker 1: in favor of Trump and against Clinton. But they've continued since.
Speaker 1: And the most profound concern I're frankly going into is
Speaker 1: something I worried about in as we were watching on
Speaker 1: the Intelligence Committee the Russians releasing these hacked documents in
Speaker 1: real time. I was most concerned that they were going
Speaker 1: to start releasing forged documents among the real ones. A
Speaker 1: forged Clinton emails suggesting that Clinton workers were engaged in
Speaker 1: the illegality, and there would have been no way to
Speaker 1: prove disprove that in the weeks running up to the election. Today,
Speaker 1: because of the development of a technology called deep fake,
Speaker 1: technology that allows you to produce utterly convincing fake video
Speaker 1: or fake audio exactly. Um, I'm deeply concerned that the
Speaker 1: Russians are going to push out a video Joe Biden
Speaker 1: saying something he never said, or videos of Mayor Pete
Speaker 1: or Elizabeth warrener Bertie Sanders or anybody else, or just videos,
Speaker 1: um showing police violence on communities of color, which we
Speaker 1: have enough of that are authentic, but doing what they
Speaker 1: did in ten but doing it to much greater effect
Speaker 1: because now they have these visual tools and they can
Speaker 1: insert these into the social media ecosystem, making it difficult
Speaker 1: to attribute the Russian hand. Um. The power to divide
Speaker 1: us is now amplified by this new technology, the power
Speaker 1: to massively disrupt an election. You can imagine if there
Speaker 1: was a video that emerged of the Democratic nominee three
Speaker 1: weeks before the election saying something racist or misogynist, or criminal,
Speaker 1: or or simply disparaging of the voters in a key
Speaker 1: swing state, and this, this doctored video of Nancy Pelosi
Speaker 1: recently gave us a good trial run. And here you
Speaker 1: have the present pushing that video out on the social media,
Speaker 1: and it's still up on his social media. Uh. You
Speaker 1: have the president denying the access Hollywood tape, which is real,
Speaker 1: pushing out tapes that he knows are doctored. And this
Speaker 1: is you know what we have one of our experts
Speaker 1: before a committee last week testify about. This is what's
Speaker 1: called the liars dividend, where someone who traffics and untruths
Speaker 1: has a great advantage in environment which people can't tell
Speaker 1: what's true anymore. Do you think somebody's gonna shot beating him? Oh? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And people should not be discouraged about the opportunity to
Speaker 1: defeat Donald Trump. He should be defeated. He has historically
Speaker 1: low support among the American people. He has never expanded
Speaker 1: his base of support, he's never bothered to even try so.
Speaker 1: He is eminently beat able. Now be easy, and we
Speaker 1: we underestimated him once at our peril um. In terms
Speaker 1: of the role of the prior presidence, they do have
Speaker 1: a role to play, but I think they also recognize
Speaker 1: they can't be the future of the party, and so
Speaker 1: if they're two out there, then they throw shade on
Speaker 1: everybody else. And and so I think they try to
Speaker 1: pick their battles where they can be helpful. Um. I
Speaker 1: still believe that our best days are ahead of us,
Speaker 1: that when this president is gone, the next president can
Speaker 1: quickly mitigate much of the damage that has been done,
Speaker 1: can restore our standing in the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: There are bright days ahead of us, and they're hard
Speaker 1: to see when you're in the midst of turmoil. You know,
Speaker 1: I found unlikely inspiration in watching Ken Burns Vietnam documentary,
Speaker 1: because you see how deeply divided we were in Vietnam.
Speaker 1: They were police shooting students on campuses and bombs going
Speaker 1: off in cities, uh, and horrendous loss of life in Vietnam,
Speaker 1: And that was a far more divisive and far more
Speaker 1: deadly period of time for country. Biden said that I was,
Speaker 1: I was, I was hosting the RFK Human Rights Center Awards.
Speaker 1: It was like a week or two after the election
Speaker 1: in November here in New York, huge gang of all
Speaker 1: the old grade Kennedy liberals. You know, we're there, and
Speaker 1: and Biden gets up there in two thousands sixteen, and
Speaker 1: he says, you think this is the worst time for
Speaker 1: this country. So this isn't the worst time for this country.
Speaker 1: And he points the picture goes nine and that was
Speaker 1: the worst time for this country. You know, Kennedy has killed,
Speaker 1: King has killed Nixon pulls the stake out of his
Speaker 1: heart and gets out of the coffin and becomes the
Speaker 1: president United States. Chicago, all that kind of stiff. He said,
Speaker 1: sixty eight, that was a bad year. But also I'll
Speaker 1: never forget. Clinton said to me just weeks prior, I
Speaker 1: was on my way to des Moine to be the
Speaker 1: keynote speaker for the for the Iowa Democratic Convention, and
Speaker 1: he I said, you have any tips me? And he said,
Speaker 1: you tell those people down there that that if they
Speaker 1: think impeachment is their hope, if they're putting all their
Speaker 1: money on impeachment, if that's their hope about how to
Speaker 1: change the actions country, and they're mistaken. They got to
Speaker 1: get their act together. They've got to rebuild the party,
Speaker 1: they've got to raise the money, and they gotta vote
Speaker 1: this guy out of office. In two thousand twenty, he said,
Speaker 1: don't put your money on impeachment. I think what people
Speaker 1: really hunger for is uh certainly within the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: for the Democrats to be just as tough as nails
Speaker 1: with this guy, to make the most powerful, profound statement
Speaker 1: about just how disgusting and unfit for office his conduct
Speaker 1: has has made him. UM. And people look to impeachment
Speaker 1: as the most powerful form of censure, and believe me,
Speaker 1: that resonates with me. There are a few people, I
Speaker 1: think who feel as passionately as I do about his
Speaker 1: unfitness for office. Um. At the same time, I think
Speaker 1: we have to be very disciplined and decide, notwithstanding you know,
Speaker 1: those uh, overwhelming feelings, Um, is this the right thing
Speaker 1: for the country? Is this the right thing for us
Speaker 1: to do? So there is that younger for the most
Speaker 1: profound form of censure. And you know, one of the
Speaker 1: things that Professor Tribe and others are exploring with us
Speaker 1: is is there a way of using impeachment to censure
Speaker 1: in a way that doesn't require a vote in the
Speaker 1: Senate so there is no subsequent acquittal. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: think we continue to keep our mind open about the
Speaker 1: possibilities as we do our work. UM. But but we
Speaker 1: have to do our work, and I think there's nothing
Speaker 1: that this President would like more than to be able
Speaker 1: to say, um, after an acquittal in the Senate, I
Speaker 1: was vindicated yet again. The reason we have no better
Speaker 1: running healthcare system than the reason we have no reform
Speaker 1: of prescription drugs and no infrastructure build and all the
Speaker 1: rest of this is because Democrats chose to impeach me
Speaker 1: instead of working together on this. He would love to
Speaker 1: to make that argument. Um, we don't want to give
Speaker 1: um any thought to anything other than you know what's
Speaker 1: the best thing for the country, and let the chips
Speaker 1: while where they may, and if that ultimately leads us
Speaker 1: to impeachment, then we impeach. But if it doesn't, then
Speaker 1: we keep our focus on our legislative agenda and also
Speaker 1: exposing the wrongdoing of the presence of the American people
Speaker 1: know exactly what kind of president they have. That was
Speaker 1: Congressman Adam Schiff from the District of California. This is
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to here's the thing, m