Freshman wishlist: Schiff-Trump 2.0
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Sen. Adam Schiff has some advice for Trump when attempting to demean him: Pick one nickname.
Why it matters: The California Democrat rose to cable TV stardom as an anti-Trump foil while leading the first impeachment in the House. "Shifty Schiff" or "Watermelon Head" learned to give as good as he got.
- Trump called Schiff names. Schiff ensured Trump was impeached — twice.
Now he's in the Senate, and Trump's back in the White House:
- "I've been thrust back into a lot of that responsibility again because what he's trying to do in the second term is even worse than what he tried to do in the first term," Schiff told us in an interview.
Zoom out: "I have my brand pre-Trump and my brand post-Trump," Schiff said.
- Before Trump dominated the national conversation, Schiff considered himself a fairly nonpartisan national security expert. (Don't laugh. He endorsed Jim Mattis for Secretary of Defense in 2016, when other Democrats didn't.)
Schiff had hoped for another rebrand in the Senate. "I was expecting a Biden or a Harris presidency, and the ability to just focus exclusively on what positive things I could get done," he told Axios.
- He is enjoying visiting redder areas of the state after spending years representing just a slice of heavily Democratic Los Angeles.
- "I knew I had made progress when one of the farmers looked at me and said, 'I don't know why he calls you watermelon head. You have a perfectly normal-sized head.'"
Driving the news: Two days after our interview, Trump deployed National Guard troops to LA.
- "This action is designed to inflame tensions, sow chaos, and escalate the situation," Schiff posted on X on Saturday.
- He also repeatedly called for violence to stop at protests. "Assaulting law enforcement is never ok," he posted yesterday.
Zoom in: Schiff tried to pass a resolution shortly before our interview to stop the administration from stripping civil rights leader Harvey Milk's name from a Navy ship.
- He has also demanded financial disclosures from the White House, written letters to stop DOGE from shutting down USDA offices, and tried to block the repeal of EV rules.
— Stef Kight and Hans Nichols
