CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript Interview with Adam Schiff

Interview

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And joining us now is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, California Democratic Representative Adam Schiff. Chairman Schiff, thank you so much for joining us.

Eight of your Republican colleagues received a detailed briefing on this intelligence today. We're now learning some Democrats will be briefed tomorrow. As the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, will you be part of that briefing? REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Yes.

My understanding is that I will be there tomorrow morning. We're also, though asking for a briefing for all of our committee members, that the intelligence community come in and give them an in person briefing on it.

And of course the speaker has asked that the intelligence community brief the entire membership of the House. And I think that's appropriate given the threat to our troops if these allegations prove to be accurate. We also want to look into this issue of whether the president was briefed on this, and if he was not briefed, why that was.

Is this again a concern with speaking truth to power that Donald Trump doesn't want to hear anything negative about Vladimir Putin because after all, the president was in inviting Russia back into the G8.

And it's kind of unfathomable that he would do that if he was knowing of the fact that his friend, Vladimir Putin, and the Kremlin or Russian intelligence services, if these public reports are accurate, were offering a bounty on the heads of American troops.

ACOSTA: And let me ask you about this because it goes to what Jamie Gangel was just talking about a few moments ago. The White House insists there was no consensus within the intelligence community about this bounty matter. Is that reason enough for you to not present this intelligence to the president?

SCHIFF: Not at all. I mean, and it is frequently the case that the president will be briefed, should be briefed on matters where there is no absolute certainty about the intelligence on a given topic.

And what we expect our intelligence agency leaders to do is say Mr. President, we have intelligence that shows X, Y or Z. We have low confidence in this intelligence or we have high confidence or we have moderate confidence in this, so that the president can evaluate the significance of it, but also ask for more information.

So no, it's not sufficient to say we didn't tell him because we couldn't, you know, dot every I, cross every T, prove every point. If your president is making decisions about the U.S./Russia relationship, which we do all the time, if it goes to the protection of our troops, that's something that needs to be briefed to the commander-in-chief.

ACOSTA: And the White House says the president was not briefed on this as you were just saying, but Mr. Trump's tweet, he tweeted about this last night, saying he had spoken to the intel community about what was going on in Afghanistan when it came to these Russian bounties. His tweet seems to suggest otherwise. Does that add up to you?

SCHIFF: You know, the fact of the matter is, Jim, we can't rely on anything the president says or anything the president's people say about him, and certainly can't rely on the press secretary to give the honest truth about something, so we just don't know.

But it's really I think a problem either way and that is the agencies either told him and he is denying it or they didn't tell him and, you know, we'd like to find out why.

Is this again an issue where like Russian interference in our election, bringing this up to the president is a great way to get a one way ticket out of the cabinet?

Are they simply afraid to confront him with evidence and information that contradicts the rosy narrative he wants to tell about Vladimir Putin's Russia or, you know, as the speaker has asked, is this an issue of them not trusting the president because there have been public reports of the president compromising intelligence, even in the Oval Office with Russian diplomats?

So, is that a question, too? I would think if we're briefing our allies, if those reports are accurate, that ought to be certainly something that would have been briefed to the president.

ACOSTA: And I want to get to coronavirus just very quickly. On this matter of these Russian bounties, would you like to see hearings on this? Do there need to be hearings on this?

SCHIFF: Yes. We've asked -- this week, we asked the intelligence agencies to come in and brief us in person, and so we would be doing a classified briefing or hearing on it and we hope that we can arrange that ASAP.

ACOSTA: And the governor of your home state of California, chairman, says there is a 45 percent rise in positive coronavirus tests over the last week.

[17:25:00]

What is your reaction to the messaging coming out of the White House as your state, many of these other states are fighting this virus and yet we're seeing these cases going up pretty dramatically in some states like yours?

SCHIFF: Well, the trends across the country and in my home state of California are deeply alarming and they're not helped at all, in fact, they're made infinitely worse by the president essentially counter messaging against what the health experts are saying, including the rise of the presence of the virus, the increase in hospitalizations.

The president falsely blaming this just on increased testing when expert after expert, state after state has confirmed no, this isn't just about more testing. This is about more people getting sick.

And what's more, you know, the counter messaging on wearing a mask, one of the most cost effective things we can do in addition to social distancing and merely washing our hands, the continual counter messaging from the president and politicization of that issue is deeply destructive.

I introduced a bill last week to allow every American to get a mask by simply requesting it, delivered by the postal service, to do PSAs on wearing masks as well as for the research. But these are things that we can that will help every state in the union and it's just negligent for the administration not to be leading right now.

ACOSTA: Okay, Chairman Adam Schiff. Thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it.

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