CNN "State of the Union" - Transcript: Interview With California Congressman Adam Schiff

Interview

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TAPPER: Let's move now to the House, where Democrats just took control, and they're starting the year with a very long to-do list.

Joining me now, a member of the Democratic leadership, the new chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, Congressman Adam Schiff.

Mr. Chairman, congratulations. Thanks for joining us.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: Thank you, Jake. Happy new year.

TAPPER: So, you just heard me talk with acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.

And one of the things that Mulvaney and I were talking about was the deliberations about the president potentially invoking emergency powers to fund the border wall. What do you make of that? What do you think?

SCHIFF: I make of that really threatening talk from the president that he doesn't have the power to execute.

Look, if Harry Truman couldn't nationalize the steel industry during wartime, this president doesn't have the power to declare an emergency and build a multibillion-dollar wall on the border. So, that's a nonstarter.

And I think that what the president needs to do more than anything else -- he's painted himself into a corner on this thing -- is figure out how he unpaints himself from that corner. We need to reopen the government. We need to put people back to work.

And I think Senator Jones was making a very important point, which is really something that I'm very focused on as well. And that is, we can't allow this continual process that was really modernized by the Tea Party that, if I don't get what I want, if I don't get what I don't have the votes for, if I don't get what the country doesn't want, I'm just going to shut down the government.

If you reward the president with that kind of tactic, Jake, then we're going to see every year the president shutting down the government. And we just can't afford to do business that way.

TAPPER: You just took control of the House Intelligence Committee. Meanwhile, the grand jury in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation has just been extended for up to another six months.

I know that you're not directly working with Mueller's investigation, but what do you make of that?

SCHIFF: Well, he's clearly not done. There's more work for the grand jury.

Now, whether that is a full six months' more work or some portion less than that, clearly, there are other potential charges that he must be considering. There's no purpose for a grand jury. I think, otherwise, we are trying to deconflict with the special counsel.

Over the last two years, frankly, our committee was working to conflict itself with the special counsel, to make the special counsel's work more difficult. We hope, as one of our first acts, to make the transcript of our witnesses fully available to the special counsel for any purpose, including the bringing of perjury charges, if necessary, against any of the witnesses, but also to see the evidence that they contain and help flesh out the picture for the special counsel.

We also really immediately went to work in reaching out to private institutions to lay the foundation to get records as soon as our committee is constituted.

TAPPER: Is there anybody in specific you have in mind when talking about somebody who may have committed perjury before your committee? Are you talking about Donald Trump Jr.? Are you talking about Michael Cohen? Are you talking about Roger Stone?

SCHIFF: I don't want to go into enumerating particularly who I have concerns about, but I do have concerns about certainly multiple witnesses.

And I think Bob Mueller, by virtue of the fact that he has been able to conduct this investigation using tools that we didn't have in our committee, meaning compulsion, is in a better position to determine, OK, who was telling the truth, who wasn't, and who could I make a case against in terms of perjury?

So there's no reason to protect these witnesses. There's every reason to validate Congress' interest in not having people come before it and lie. And I think people felt that they had some kind of immunity with the GOP majority at the time, because they would often intervene to tell witnesses: "You don't have to answer that question. You don't have to say anything you don't want or come in even if you don't want to. We're not going to compel you."

And that's simply no way to run an investigation.

TAPPER: A knowledgeable source just told me this morning that the Trump White House -- quote -- "forced out" Pentagon Chief of Staff Rear Admiral Kevin Sweeney.

Here's what Samantha Power, the former ambassador to the United Nations under President Obama, tweeted last night about Admiral Sweeney's departure -- quote -- "It is January 5, 2019. We have no secretary of defense and now no Department of Defense chief of staff, no attorney general, and no evident guardrails in Trump's inner circle. The president is unhinged. Even GOP zealots know it. Republicans inside and outside the administrator must stop enabling Trump and protect America" -- unquote.

[09:35:03]

That's a rather stark picture of the Trump administration. Do you agree with that view?

SCHIFF: I largely do agree that all of the adults are one by one being forced out of the room.

Anyone that had the standing or the independence to speak out to the president, to tell the president what he needed to hear, not what he wanted to hear, has been pushed aside.

And now you have a lot of yes-people serving the president. And with this kind of a president, who is as impulsive as he is, who makes up claims out of whole cloth -- and you talked earlier today about the astonishing claim that the Soviets invaded Afghanistan to fight terror.

That's not something you say out of frustration. That's a Kremlin talking point. And if he doesn't have anyone who will tell them -- tell him: "Mr. President, that's flat-out wrong. Where are you getting this from?"

And Mr. Mulvaney may review the documents that come to the president's desk. He doesn't get to review every phone call the president makes and who's whispering in the president's ear. Someone is giving him these ideas about Montenegro and about what the Soviets invaded Afghanistan for, what the -- really what's being presented in the Duma right now as the Russian point of view.

So it is deeply concerning. Republicans in Congress do need to speak out. History is going to hold them accountable. And now is the time.

TAPPER: I want to ask you about a comment from your fellow Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib this week that Democrats need to -- quote -- "impeach the mother-F-er," referring to President Trump.

Forgetting the language for a second, her comments underscore the desire of Democrats to impeach President Trump; 80 percent of Democratic voters want the president to be impeached.

How much pressure do you feel to take action against President Trump, even if you personally aren't there yet in terms of any evidence?

SCHIFF: Well, first of all, Jake, I'm in the unique position to say this, considering the president made my last name a profanity. This president is not in a position to talk about the use of language. Nobody has done more to debase the political sphere, the public square than Donald Trump.

But in terms of the merits of impeachment, we need to see what Bob Mueller has to say. And I really think it's premature for Democrats to be talking about what the remedy ought to be before we know the full body of evidence.

And that's what I have urged our colleagues to do all along. It's what I'm going to continue to urge them. And I think that's where, frankly, my constituents are. That's what I hear from them. They understand that, yes, it's theoretically possible you could line up the votes in the House, but what's the point, if you don't know the full case and you can't make the case to the Senate?

And, in particular, it has to be a bipartisan process. If the Republican senators, some of them, are not on board, then all you have is a failed impeachment. And I don't see how that benefits the country.

TAPPER: I understand you have made a decision about what the first public hearing will be in the House Intelligence Committee.

SCHIFF: I have.

And this is, I think, the big picture that often got lost in the day- to-day following of what was happening in the Russia investigation with this witness or that.

And that is, we have a rise of authoritarianism around the world, a real rise of autocracy. Most of us live lives, all of us live lives in this generation in which our freedoms were ever increasing, nations around the world were living in more democratic societies, with more free speech, and more right to assemble.

And we thought that was somehow inexorable. And now we find it isn't. We're at an inflection point.

And there is a real challenge to the very idea of democracy. We don't have a president who's willing to stand up to these autocrats. This is a real danger, a present danger, for the United States, this rise of authoritarianism, and we need to better understand it, and we need to figure out a better strategy to counter it.

TAPPER: All right, Chairman Schiff, thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate it.

SCHIFF: Thank you, Jake.

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