CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Adam Schiff

Interview

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COOPER: Thanks, everybody. Just ahead tonight, new reporting on the President trying to pardon himself and how quickly that might happen.

First, the man who warned us all the last time that unless removed from office, the President would do something dire again, House Intelligence Committee Chairman and lead impeachment manager, Congressman Adam Schiff.

Chairman Schiff, you were front and center for the first impeachment more than a year ago. This time, there were some Republican votes. How much different did it feel?

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Well, I think it was very different a year ago. Today, we stood in the same place in the House chamber that was almost overrun by a mob incited to violence by the President.

We moved with incredible alacrity to address this danger that the President poses every day he remains. That's much different than the lengthy investigation we did of the President's last abuses of power.

But this felt very familiar in the sense of the President's character or lack of character has been known from day one. There's nothing that's surprising that has taken place. He is who he is, as we, as we pointed out during the trial, and the odds that he would again, try to cheat in the election we said were a hundred percent, and that was all too tragically the case.

So there's certainly a lot of familiarity about it, but the magnitude of the harm to our country is just beyond comprehension.

COOPER: I was really surprised by, I guess I wasn't surprised by it, but a lot of the arguments that we heard today from Republicans in the House who chose to side, to not try to make the President face any responsibility for this. The argument really just seemed to be well, you know, there's a double standard. There were protests this summer and there was, you know, there was violence at some of the protests.

And what about that? You know, this what about-ism? There was not a full throated defense of the President by many people in the party. I guess, they were too embarrassed to actually really try to do that.

SCHIFF: Well, that's true. You know, the President, of course, is the prime propagator of what about-ism. We've seen that for four years now. So they are following his example.

And 140 or more of those members, even after this bloody insurrection, we're back on the floor three hours later pushing out the President's lies again, challenging the election again.

And they realized that if they were to indict the President by impeaching him, they're really indicting themselves. So clearly, you know, that group of 140, two-thirds of the Republican Conference, they weren't going to be moved to suddenly honor their oaths.

But I would have liked to have seen more than 10 of the rest recognize that the severity of what this President did and the need, not only to remove him, but to telegraph to any future occupant of that office, that if a person does anything like this again, they will be impeached and removed from office.

COOPER: I don't believe that, you know, the 74 or whatever million Americans who voted for this President this time, you know, that all of the 74 million people approve of what occurred on the Capitol, I just can't believe that.

I think most Americans abhor violence and would abhor what they saw. But how do you convince the country -- the tens of millions of people who do legitimately believe that this election was stolen, and there's good people who do believe that? A lot of them. How do we, as a nation move forward without those tens of millions of people, at least coming to the understanding that, yes, this was a fraud. The President has been lying. It's been a grift and a fraud and the election is legitimate.

SCHIFF: Well, I think this is one of the most important and one of the most difficult questions for the country going forward and that is, we get our information from very different places now and there's a whole information ecosystem where if you want to live in Donald Trump's fantasy land, you can.

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SCHIFF: You can tune into FOX prime time, or OAN, or you can read Breitbart or "The Daily Caller," and you'll get nothing, but the regurgitation of his lies. It's hard to break through that.

Now, I think one of the important and salutary things about an impeachment trial is you do get to reach people who are not watching the news all the time, and it's an opportunity to reach those whose minds are still open to persuasion.

And I think you're absolutely right, Anderson. I don't believe for a minute that the 70 some odd million who voted for Donald Trump condone this kind of violence. I think it is a small percentage of his supporters.

But nonetheless, a small percentage, obviously, can do great harm to the country, and we need the much greater multitude of his supporters to understand the facts of the election, that Joe Biden not only won convincingly and that they've been fed a lie. And, frankly, that they've been fed a lie not just by the President,

but by their own Members of the House and Senate, and they should hold them accountable.

COOPER: Chairman Schiff, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

SCHIFF: Thanks, Anderson.

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