STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The Democrats who say they're willing to block funding include Senator Adam Schiff of California, who's on the line. Senator, welcome back.
ADAM SCHIFF: Thank you. Good to be with you.
INSKEEP: I think I understood from Claudia what happens there if you don't reach a deal by tomorrow night. It sounds like the whole government may be affected, not just DHS. Is that right?
SCHIFF: Maybe not the whole government because some funding passed in previous legislation that continues for many months more, but much of the government will shut down unless there is a deal reached by midnight tomorrow.
INSKEEP: And you're willing to pay that price.
SCHIFF: Well, it'll be the Republicans who make that decision. We want the bill separated from DHS. I'm not prepared to spend another dime on ICE unless there's just a massive set of reforms that include things like ending these indiscriminate sweeps of cities, the deployment of mass numbers of ill-trained ICE troops to places that mayors and governors don't want them, the continued wearing of masks. The masks should be gone. They should be wearing bodycams and have ID. We also want to make sure that there's compliance with the law when it comes to warrants. There should be arrest warrants. If you're going to go into someone's home, you need a judicially signed warrant. None of these administrative warrants signed within DHS. There's going to have to be a lot of wholesale reforms, including an end to the excessive use of force and accountability - real investigations with the participation of state and local police.
INSKEEP: We heard John Thune there say that he's reluctant to write those provisions into law, wants you to work something out with the White House, some kind of executive order. What do you make of that?
SCHIFF: That's a no-go. I mean, there's absolutely no trust in this administration. And even though the president sounds like he is backpedaling at the moment, you know, that changes from hour to hour. He made some mitigating statements, and then they - he followed them with, again, more attacks on Alex Pretti, more lies about Alex Pretti. So there's no trust in this president. So I think in order for this to work, there's going to have to be real written statutory limits on what ICE and the Customs and Border Protection could do.
INSKEEP: Is Senator Thune effectively telling you who's in charge here? Republicans in Congress are going to defer to him anyway.
SCHIFF: Well, I don't know. Many Republicans are speaking...
INSKEEP: I mean to Trump, of course, is what I mean. But go on, please.
SCHIFF: Yeah. Well, look, ultimately, Republicans in Congress have a statutory and a constitutional duty themselves, and that duty is not to do whatever the person or the president wants. It's to do their constitutional duty. So they need to rise up and grow a spine and make sure that we put an end to the murder of people in our streets. You're hearing some Republicans speak out and differ with the president. But whether that will continue, you know, past his prologue, I'm not optimistic. But in this moment, we're going to insist on real changes to ICE. Otherwise, they're certainly not going to have my vote.
INSKEEP: You've just made an argument for lawmakers not necessarily doing what the president wants but following their duty. And this raises another question about people in the executive branch. We have some news here, Senator. On Wednesday, we're told the FBI served a search warrant at the election headquarters in Fulton County, Georgia, which includes most of Atlanta. They're looking for ballots from the 2020 election. What do you make of the FBI taking such a step seemingly in support of President Trump's baseless theory that he won in 2020?
SCHIFF: Americans really need to, you know, wake up to what's happening here. If they're going to use the FBI unlawfully to do an investigation to once again prove nonexistent fraud from an election the president continues to lie about, then what are they prepared to do in the midterm election? What abuse of power will they use? Will they invoke the Insurrection Act and station police outside of polling stations or military outside of polling stations to try to intimidate people? Will they seize ballots, as they're trying to do in Georgia now? If they'll do that over a past election, will they do that over a present election? So this needs to be a wake-up call, I think, for all of us.
On the January 6 Committee, I handled the hearing that looked into Georgia. I still remember vividly that call the president made where he badgered the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to find 11,780 votes that didn't exist. If he was willing to do that then, what more is he willing to do in this much more lawless administration to try to overturn the results or prevent people's vote from counting?
INSKEEP: Senator, I'm glad you mentioned the elections coming this fall. A few days ago on this program, we had Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, on. And she described Democrats - really smart Democrats, in her opinion - being around the tabletop, making plans for what might go wrong, what might happen and how to respond. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? What are Democrats doing, so far as you know, to prepare for whatever you think might happen this fall?
SCHIFF: We are doing exactly that, which is making all the contingency plans we can. But I'll say this - I was part of the same effort four years ago during the last election, when we came up with about a thousand things that might go wrong in the election except the one that did, which was the insurrection.
INSKEEP: Got it.
SCHIFF: We never anticipated a mass attack on the Capitol. So I'm circumspect about everything we can anticipate. Look, a lot is going to count on whether our institutions hold, whether our military refuses to execute illegal orders, whether our Republicans are willing to defend our democracy or whether they're still going to go along with a president who simply wants to accumulate more power. There are no, you know, magic buttons to push here. Ultimately, I think it's going to count on the most important player in the political process, and that is our citizens, to make sure they overcome every hurdle to vote - and they're going to try to put hurdles in the way - and to insist that their votes count. That's the best protection we have.
INSKEEP: I'm really interested to hear you say that before the 2020 election, you tried to game out what might go wrong and didn't figure out the thing that ultimately did go wrong, in your opinion. I'm just curious if you understand the state of play now. Are Democrats, for example, lining up lawyers, getting ready to make legal arguments? Is there something you can do other than going to court if something wrong, in your opinion, is taking place?
SCHIFF: Yes. We are doing exactly that, and litigation is a big part of the strategy, as it was during the previous contested election. I think the challenge is the Supreme Court has never been trustworthy. It certainly isn't now, and litigation has its limits. We counted on a lot of state and local officials - Republican state and local officials to do their duty, which they did. People like Brad Raffensperger and others who said no to the president when the president was asking them to do things illegally, like Rusty Bowers, the Republican speaker in Arizona. Will Republican local elected officials - elections officials - again refuse to do things that are unethical and illegal? That was an important check that we're not sure we will have this time.
INSKEEP: Adam Schiff is a Democratic senator from California. Senator Schiff, thanks very much for the time. Really appreciate it.
SCHIFF: Thank you.
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