CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: "Interview with Rep. Adam Schiff"

Interview

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BLITZER: I suspect we'll be hearing a lot more from him in the coming days and weeks. He used to by a FOX News contributor before joining the White House so he might go back there or someplace else. Jamie and Kiley, thank you very much.

And let's get more on all of this. Joining us now, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Democratic Congressman, Adam Schiff of California.

Mr. Chairman, thanks very much for coming in.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Good to be with you.

BLITZER: You were never a big fan of John Bolton so are you happy the president got rid of him?

SCHIFF: Well, I am until we find out who comes next because the story of this administration is one of going from bad to worse. But he was always a poor fit for national security adviser, someone who ideally has the judgment and temperament to bring people together, to be an honest broker for the president, to allow the president to hear conflicting points of view and help the president along to a decision.

In Pompeo's statement that the president is entitled to someone he values and trusts, he was basically saying the president didn't value Bolton, didn't trust Bolton. Ironically, though, on a couple of key issues, this failed idea for a summit at Camp David and these colossal failures with North Korea, Bolton was right.

That kind of unprepared high-stakes summitry, that reality TV kind of diplomacy isn't going to work with North Korea. It didn't work with the Taliban. It hasn't worked with the Iranians and I think it is -- it has been a mistake and a costly one for the United States.

BLITZER: The turnover among national security advisers, secretary of state, Secretary of Defense, this national security team, how much concern does that raise?

SCHIFF: It raises a lot of concern. There has never been much process in this White House in terms of getting to a good decision on matters. And so we see just more of the dysfunction.

But even in the best of circumstances it was chaotic. Just to give you one illustration of that tweet that the president sent out, purportedly of a photograph of this Iranian missile site, with a vague or ambiguous language about whether he had any role in it, what was the point of that?

That certainly didn't come out of any comprehensive or comprehensible national security process. And so it just leaves people baffled.

BLITZER: Here is that tweet. You could see the picture.

Was that classified information that the president -- he has the right; he could declassify whatever he wants.

SCHIFF: Well, I can't comment on that. But I can say there doesn't seem to be any process for guiding the president on what he says, on what he does, on the international repercussions of it, on the repercussions in terms of our intelligence agencies.

And so that is one of the real costs of a lack of a workable National Security Council. And here, with this latest departure, who knows when we'll have one of those.

BLITZER: I can only assume you can't comment because it was classified. If it hadn't been, never been classified, then obviously you could have commented.

SCHIFF: Well, I can't comment either way because that may implicate when this comes up again, if it comes up again. Indeed, this is part of the problem with the president's statement, which is does that mean when there is another Iranian failure and the president doesn't tweet, that that is saying something about U.S. involvement?

So there was just nothing to be gained by what the president did. And we see this time and time again. You see it in the president's statements, for example.

"I'm not worried about these North Korean missile launches," something he has said in the past.

[17:15:00] SCHIFF: That statement, I can promise you, was never vetted by any national security official in the White House. And that is the problem with a broken process.

BLITZER: He keeps suggesting these are just short-range missile launches. They have a range of 1,000 kilometers, 600 miles. They could hit South Korea or where there is 35,000 U.S. troops; Japan, a lot more troops there. Short-range is not necessarily 5 miles.

SCHIFF: That is exactly right. I mean, they could kill a lot of Americans and a lot of our allies and if he's not worried about that, maybe he should spend some time worrying about North Korea's continued nuclear program, even as he exchanges love letters with Kim Jong-un.

BLITZER: Let me get to some of Jim Sciutto's excellent reporting here on CNN. As you know, he first reported yesterday that the U.S. back in 2017 extracted what was seen as a Soviet -- as a Russian asset working in Moscow, somebody who was valuable and may have been potentially at risk so they brought him here to the United States.

I know there is a limit to what you can say about this.

But what are your thoughts?

SCHIFF: Well, I can't comment at all on the veracity or lack of veracity of those allegations. I can say that there is a concern about the president, about whether foreign intelligence services can trust what they provide to us, whether they'll give us their most sensitive intelligence.

I think sources themselves, often who are motivated, yes, by money but by an ideological belief in what the U.S. stands for, when they see what this president stands for -- and it's so much at odds with our legacy of support for democracy and human rights -- those sources tend to dry up.

The continuing attacks on our intelligence professionals, this coziness with Russia, I was frankly just as disturbed with the reporting about the president questioning whether human intelligence is even valuable.

Why is the president afraid of what human intelligence may --

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BLITZER: When you say human intelligence, you mean from foreign sources. The president is suggesting, according to Jim Sciutto's latest reporting today, that maybe that kind of sources, foreign sources are not reliable.

SCHIFF: Well, if this is what the president is communicating to our intelligence community, these are people risking their lives for the United States, risking their lives because we have got hardworking people in the intelligence agencies, recruiting these assets.

And that just makes their work so much more difficult and it makes it more dangerous for any foreign asset. So this is just singularly unhelpful without getting to the merits of these particular claims.

BLITZER: Important point indeed. Mr. Chairman, thanks so much for coming in.

SCHIFF: Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: Adam Schiff of California.

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