MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: National Security Advisor

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

MADDOW: On the same day that the president fired yet another national  security adviser and the lead lawyer on his Russia defense team and the Dow  dropped over 700 points on fears of a president inspired trade war with  China, NBC is also now reporting that the president is thinking not just a  firing his chief of staff John Kelly, but he`s thinking of firing him and  then not replacing him. The president has, quote, mused to close  associates about running the West Wing as he did his business empire,  essentially serving as his own chief of staff. It sounds like a great  idea. Why did any other president need a chief of staff anyway? They  could have all just been like Trump.

Tonight, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee had this  reaction. Quote: It`s hard to escape the disquieting conclusion that the  mass exodus of the adults from this administration is putting our nation`s  national security at risk. Ambassador Bolton`s hawkish and conspiratorial  thinking will only make matters dangerously worse.

Joining us now is that top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee,  Congressman Adam Schiff.
Congressman, thank you for being here tonight on a very busy evening.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), RANKING MEMBER, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE:  It`s good to be with you.

MADDOW: Let me just get your top-line reaction to this latest round of  churn at the top level of the administration.

SCHIFF: Well, I think Bolton is not only a bad choice it`s honestly  difficult to consider a worse choice. This is someone who`s likely to  exaggerate the dangerous impulses of the president towards belligerence,  his proclivity to act without thinking, and his is love of conspiracy  theories.

And I`ll you know just add one data point to what you were talking about  earlier, John Bolton once suggested on Fox News that the Russian hack of  the DNC was a false flag operation that had been conducted by the Obama  administration. So, you add that kind of thinking to Joe diGenova and you  have another big dose of unreality in the White House.

So, the Bolton appointment really scares me on Iran, on North Korea, on  feeding this kind of conspiracy thinking about the president. But the  firing of Dowd also ought to alarm all of us because it`s yet another  signal that he intends to have a much more aggressive approach to Bob  Mueller and we`re I think a step closer to a potential firing of Bob  Mueller.

MADDOW: I mentioned a moment ago that I look at the way the president has  changed his legal team with the addition of Mr. diGenova and Ms. Toensing,  his wife, with removal of John Dowd today and with the president`s recent  statements about the inquiry, and I feel like to me, the president is no  longer -- no longer seems to be working on a legal strategy, seems more to  be looking at a legal communication strategy, or a PR strategy and that  therefore it seems to me like he thinks he may be able to end this in the  court of politics, rather than by going through legal processes.

It sounds to me from what you just said that you might share that worry.

SCHIFF: I do share that worry. I also share the concern that the  president`s world now is confined to watching Fox News, to believing what he sees on Fox News, but also believing that Fox News isn`t the only 
repository of talent to fill his administration.

And apart from his insular existence in the Oval Office, Fox is his whole  world. But these folks who are now joining the administration I think are  going to add a really dangerous new element and they just might persuade  him that the best approach to Bob Mueller is to try to shut it down, to  have a political strategy of communicating to Congress in the country why  he`s justified in shutting it down.

And that will bring on a real crisis in the country that will I think bring  us to a grinding halt. So, it`s a dangerous turn of events.

MADDOW: Congressman Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House  Intelligence Committee -- appreciate your time tonight, sir. Thank you for  being with us.

SCHIFF: Thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source