In first year in Senate, Schiff pushes legislation, party message and challenges to Trump
Five months after joining the US Senate, Adam Schiff gave a speech in which he called the “10 best deals for Donald Trump and the worst deals for the American people.”
Schiff talked about Trump and his family getting rich thanks to cryptocurrency, making new development deals in the Middle East, and the president accepting free jets from the Qatari government. Meanwhile, average Americans are losing healthcare, being priced out of the housing market and “being forced to choose between rent or groceries,” he said.
“Trump gets rich. You get screwed,” the Democrat said.
His speech was a classic Schiff speech; It was the former prosecutor’s attempt to distill a complex series of corruption allegations against Trump and his orbit into a single, coherent corruption case against the president, while serving his own party’s preferred message about rising costs and lack of affordability.
It was also a prime example of the path Schiff has followed since being sworn in a year ago to end the final term of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who held the seat for more than 30 years before dying in office in 2023.
Schiff, now serving a six-year term, remains an unflinching foe of Trump, with many Californians electing him after watching him follow the president through the U.S. House of Representatives during Trump’s first term in the White House. He has also continued to serve as one of the Democratic Party’s more than somewhat skilled reporters, pressing Trump on his alleged abuses of power and the lagging economy that has become one of the president’s biggest liabilities.
In doing so, Schiff also defended himself against Trump’s accusations that he committed mortgage fraud in loan documents dating back years; responding to the devastating wildfires that ripped through the Los Angeles area in January; visited 25 of California’s 58 counties to meet more of its nearly 40 million voters; interrogating Trump appointees to the Senate Judiciary Committee; and, as a minority member of a deeply dysfunctional Congress, he is struggling to pass legislation that recently authorized the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history.
It has been an unusual and busy freshman year; He received harsh criticism from the White House but high praise from his allies.
“Pen Neck Anxiety Schiff clearly suffers from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, which clouds his every thought,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said. “It’s too bad for Californians that Pencil Neck is more focused on his hatred of the President than on the issues that matter to them.”
“He’s done a great job for California,” said Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, who supported Schiff’s opponent in the Senate primary, former Rep. Katie Porter. “He’s not afraid to challenge Trump, he’s not afraid to engage in close surveillance, he’s not afraid to ask questions, and it’s clear that Donald Trump is afraid of Adam Schiff.”
“Even though he is a freshman in the Senate, he is definitely not a rookie,” said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.).
Legislative initiatives
Before Schiff became nationally known for leading the first-term impeachment of Trump and helping investigate the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, he was known as a serious legislator. He has tried to restore that reputation since joining the Senate.
He has introduced bills to harden homes against wildfires and other natural disasters, provide tax breaks for Los Angeles fire victims, strengthen California’s fire-damage insurance market, examine the impact of artificial intelligence on the American workforce, reinstate a national assault weapons ban and expand federal tax credits for affordable housing.
He has also introduced bills to end Trump’s tariffs, rein in the powers of the executive branch, prevent the president and other elected officials from getting rich from cryptocurrencies, and end the White House-led bombing campaign of alleged drug ships in the Caribbean.
None of this legislation passed.
Schiff said he was aware that putting his name on legislation could hurt his chances of winning support, and that at times he deliberately stayed in the background on bills he was working on (he didn’t say which ones) to give them a better chance of progress. But he also said he believes Democrats need to tell voters “why they’re for it” more often, that he’s proud to put his name to bills that are important to him, and that he believes it will lower costs for Californians.
As an example, he said his recently introduced Housing BOOM (Building Occupied Opportunity for Millions) Act is about building “millions of new affordable homes for working families across America, just like we did after World War II,” and is worth pushing even if Republicans resist.
“As we saw in the health care debate, when Republicans fail to act to reduce costs but instead do things that increase costs, we can force them to respond by putting forward our own proposals to move the country forward,” he said. “If Republicans continue to be deaf to the needs of the American people, with President Trump calling the affordability issue a scam, then they will be subject to the same kind of bombardment they experienced in last month’s election.”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), a staunch ally, called Schiff a “legislative genius” who “gives people hope” with bills that could pass if Democrats win back the House next year.
“He has a vision for our country. He has excellent knowledge of the issues from all the years he has served. He is a strategic thinker,” he said. “I wouldn’t question how he decided to pass a bill just because his name is in the White House.”
Republican consultant Mike Madrid said Schiff’s prominent position on the list of Trump’s enemies certainly hurt his chances of passing legislation, but the hyper-partisan nature of Congress meant Schiff’s chances weren’t very good to begin with.
Madrid, meanwhile, said that working for solutions clearly serves him and his party because “he’s probably achieving more socially than he could legally achieve.”
Criticism and praise
For months, Trump and his administration have been accusing several prominent Democrats of mortgage-related crimes. Trump accused Schiff of mortgage fraud for claiming primary residence in both California and Maryland, which Schiff denied.
Nothing has come of it so far. Schiff said he was not questioned by federal prosecutors. It was reported that the case was approached with suspicionand said he knew nothing about it except that it was “a broad effort to silence and intimidate the president’s critics.”
Schiff’s supporters and other political observers in the state either brushed off the issue, ignored it or said they saw it as a potential win for the senator when asked about Schiff’s first year.
“Adam Schiff is a person of great integrity and people know that,” Pelosi said.
“Probably one of the best things that could happen to Schiff would be if Trump actually provoked it. [Justice Department] To accuse her of mortgage fraud and then have the case thrown into court,” said veteran Democratic strategist Garry South — noting that this also happened in a similar case against New York Attorney General Letitia James.
“He really benefited from Trump putting a target on his back,” South said. “This is not a death knell in California, this is a life force.”
Sen., who chairs the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, which includes Schiff. John Boozman (R-Ark.) said California represents a large portion of the nation’s agricultural industry and having Schiff on the committee “is a good thing not only for California, but also for our overall efforts to support farmers and producers across the country.”
“I have known Senator Schiff since we served in the House together, and we are both committed to advocating for the needs of farmers and rural America in a bipartisan manner,” Boozman said. “We look forward to more opportunities to advance these goals together.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the Judiciary Committee, has a “cordial, professional relationship” with Schiff, a spokesman said.
Corrin Rankin, chair of the California Republican Party, declined to comment. Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco, the leading Republican in the governor’s race, did not respond to a request for comment.
Look ahead
What Schiff does next will depend in part on whether Democrats can regain the majority in Congress. But people on both sides of the political aisle said they expect big things from him.
No matter what happens, Schiff will be “at the center of holding the Trump administration accountable,” Garcia said. “Obviously in the majority, we will have the ability to issue subpoenas, hold hearings, and hold the administration accountable in a way that we don’t have right now, but even in the minority, I think you see Adam’s strong voice being pretty constant.”
Kevin Spillane, a veteran GOP strategist, said he doesn’t pay much attention to Schiff’s economic messaging because California voters know Democrats are causing the state’s affordability crisis by raising taxes and imposing endless regulations.
But he said Schiff is already the “second most important Democrat in California” after Newsom, and if voters begin to see him as someone working toward solutions, his efforts on affordability could take him even further.
Rob Stutzman, another Republican consultant, said he could see Schiff “evolving into the Feinstein role” in the coming years as “California’s watchdog in the U.S. Congress,” meaning someone “capable of brokering deals” on hugely important issues like water and infrastructure. But to do that, Schiff “must rid himself of the political image of being anti-Trump,” Stutzman said.
Schiff said he knew he would head to the Senate when Trump returned to the White House and split his time “between delivering to California and fighting the worst of Trump policies.” But he said efforts to fix the economy and efforts to resist Trump are not contradictory but deeply intertwined.
“When people feel that their parents’ quality of life is better and their children’s future looks even more doubtful, many people are ready to entertain demagogues who come promising that only they can solve the problem. They begin to question whether democracy really works,” he said. “So I don’t think we can put our democracy on a solid foundation until we put our economy on a solid foundation.”
Times writer Ana Ceballos in Washington contributed to this report.
