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

Interview

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[20:30:49]

BLITZER: Just a short time ago, after months of haggling and a weekend of intense late-night negotiations, Congress finally reached a deal on a massive $900 billion COVID relief package. But Democrats are already eyeing another round of stimulus. Watch this.

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PELOSI: It's a first step. And that again more needs to be done. And we're so excited that that will be happening under the Biden-Harris administration about 700 hours from now.

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BLITZER: Thirty-one days to be specific. I'm joined now by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff.

Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. As you know, a vote is expected in the House I understand tomorrow. How soon will people who are suffering right now, having trouble putting food on the table for their kids, paying rent, how soon will these folks start feeling the effects of this emergency relief package?

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Well, I hope as soon as possible. It may depend on what provision of the bill that they're relying upon. If they're a small business, they'll have to go through the process of applying for those PPP funds. But the extensions in unemployment assistance I hope will be implemented ASAP. Again, it may depend in part on how fast the states can turn things around.

But I'm glad that there is help on the way, that the deal is done, and we're going to go in and vote on it because so many families are hurting and struggling. And so many businesses aren't going to be around next year if they don't get the help that they need.

BLITZER: Yes. I think nearly 10 million Americans over these past months, they've lost their jobs. They are in poverty right and it's an awful situation. The economic relief that will have to be continued once Joe Biden becomes president of the United States, as I said in 31 days, what more, Congressman, would you like to see included?

SCHIFF: Well, you know, I would certainly like to see assistance to the states and the cities. Now there's help going out in this bill for the vaccination program, for more testing, and some of that will go through the states and local governments. But nonetheless, to avoid massive layoffs at the state and local level, to avoid the layoffs of police and firefighters and health care workers, we're going to need to provide them assistance.

We don't want states and cities to be going bankrupt right now. But we're going to need to do more for renters to help them pay their rent and avoid eviction. We're going to do -- need to do more I know for small businesses and we may need to extend unemployment compensation again or do more stimulus checks because, you know, sadly, the pandemic isn't going to be over on January 1st.

It's going to continue and there are going to be some harder times before there are better times, even if with these vaccinations now we finally see some light at end of the tunnel.

BLITZER: Let me ask you about these reports that there were actual discussions -- this is hard to believe -- over at White House, in the Oval Office, about possibly invoking martial law to overturn the results of this democratically held election here in the United States.

When you hear about this, what goes through your mind, Congressman?

SCHIFF: You know, it really is hard to believe. It would be unthinkable really in any other administration with any other president. But here you have, you know, Michael Cohen, someone who pled guilty twice to lying to federal agents and someone who was a very poor manager when he was the director of National Intelligence --

BLITZER: You mean -- you mean Michael Flynn?

SCHIFF: Michael Flynn. I'm sorry. Yes. Michael Flynn, when he was the director of the Intelligence -- Defense Intelligence Agency. And here he is at White House talking about, you know, whether the president can use the military essentially to bring about a coup. I mean, it's just extraordinary. And of course dangerous, destructive of our democracy to even have these kind of talks. I mean, you know, and it really -- we've been saying this all along, but this is the kind of thing you see in developing countries with tin pot dictators, not in the United States of America.

BLITZER: Yes. It's hard to believe. They actually had a discussion along these lines. Michael Flynn even said publicly in a radio interview earlier in the week that martial law might be a good idea.

[20:35:02] Let's talk about this massive hack targeting the U.S. government, some major private enterprises here in the United States. Apparently it's still ongoing. We don't know the full extent of it. But give us your sense. You've been briefed on this. What happened? What is going on? How big of a deal is this? Because yesterday, the president suggested it's being overblown by the mainstream media.

SCHIFF: Well, that's absurd for the president to make that claim. It's even more absurd and destructive for him to suggest that it wasn't the Russians, it may have been the Chinese. It was the same kind of false deflection he did four years ago about the Russian hack of the 2016 election. Basically, what the Russians did -- and they are very capable in cyberspace -- is they hacked into this program that is, you know, at the root of a lot of our infrastructure and backbone, the SolarWinds program.

They built a Trojan horse into it. And now that has infected thousands and thousands of systems of public agencies and private companies. And we don't know yet what they were able to steal in actual trade. We don't know yet what other vectors apart from SolarWinds they used to get into these systems, although we know there were other vectors. And we don't know exactly how to be confident when we purge them that they are really out of the system.

So in some of these cases, the systems are going to have to be scrapped and we're going to have to start all over. The cost will be enormous, the loss of national security information and trade secrets potentially could also be devastating. They may have also prepared the battlefield in terms of critical infrastructure to shut down power plants or hydroelectric dams or other infrastructure if push came to shove, so it will take us weeks, months or maybe even longer to understand the full scope of the harm done.

BLITZER: Very quickly before I let you go, Congressman, how certain are you that it's Russia? Because the president said it might be China. He says he's been briefed on this, it might be China. How certain are you that it's Russia?

SCHIFF: Well, I'm sure that he's been briefed, which makes what he says just a patent lie. I don't think there's any question that this was Russia. There's certainly no suggestion I have seen that it was China. That's just the president going out in the same way he came in this administration, with falsehoods every day. But these particular falsehoods by the president to protect, what, the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin, they do away with any deterrent that we would have vis-a-vis the Russians because Putin understands that the president is too weak to ever call him out.

It also means, Wolf, that should China engage in a bad act, the president who cried wolf wouldn't be believed because he has cast so many false claims like this one.

BLITZER: Congressman Schiff is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Thank you so much for joining us.

SCHIFF: Thanks, Wolf.

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