WATCH: Sen. Schiff Delivers Major Speech on Upholding Democracy

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) delivered a major speech at the Center for American Progress calling out the Trump administration's attacks on judicial and legislative checks and balances and the weaponization of government and law enforcement agencies - and detailing how Democrats should respond.

During his speech, Schiff also touched on the deployment of federal forces in American cities, politically motivated investigations and prosecutions, and intimidation tactics on independent media and civic institutions. Schiff also offered insight into how he's protecting checks and balances and pushing for accountability reforms to challenge the administration's increasingly authoritarian actions.

Watch his full speech HERE. Download remarks HERE.

Read the transcript of his remarks as delivered below:

Good afternoon, everyone. And want to tell you what a delight it is to join you. Thank you, Neera, for those amazing words. Neera and I have a lot in common. Most significantly, we are both originally from the birthplace of the American revolution. Which means that at this very precarious time in our history, we are both deeply, deeply concerned about the fate of our democracy … and the Red Sox. Neera, I so appreciate the important work CAP does to develop bold, progressive policies that move our country forward. Needless to say, that work is more important than ever right now.

No single event pinpoints America's descent into authoritarianism. But there are moments that crystallize the nature of the threat we face. One of those moments took place this past June, in Orange County, California. It was a Saturday afternoon. A landscaper named Narciso Barranco was working outside an IHOP. He'd lived in the United States since the 1990s-undocumented, yes, but with no criminal record in all that time. In fact, he had raised three U.S. Marines. One is a veteran and two are on active duty.

A group of men approached - masked, in tactical gear with guns drawn. They tackled Narciso. Pepper sprayed him. Beat him violently in the head and neck, dislocating his shoulder. Then they threw him into an unmarked vehicle and drove off. ICE detained Narciso for more than 24 hours with no food, no water, or medical treatment.

When Narciso's sons finally got ahold of him, he had one request: He asked them to retrieve his landscaping equipment and finish the job that he'd been doing. That - more than any set of immigration papers-says everything about the character of a man the administration has treated as some kind of violent criminal. And his horrifying arrest and detention likewise says everything about the character of Donald Trump's lawless regime.

Tragically, terribly, this incident is but one of many such abuses. We've seen parents seized outside schools and daycares. Fire crew members arrested while actively fighting fires. A disabled teen shackled. A U.S. Senator shackled.

Just last week, the Supreme Court greenlit even more indiscriminate arrests. They declared, in their wisdom, that no probable cause is necessary. Nothing more than a person's skin color, or English fluency, or wherever they happen to work, whether it's a car wash or a construction site.

This is not "originalism." This is not "calling balls and strikes." This is nothing more than racial-profiling by high judges in robes, judges far removed from the pain they are causing, judges who are seeing the bitter consequence of the decisions they have made - and are doing nothing to stop it.

With every new order - every institutional guardrail gleefully obliterated - we are forced to ask ourselves: How did we get here? And more importantly, how do we stop it?

To answer that question, we have to remind ourselves what we're fighting for. And it is this: For all our flaws, all our stumbles, America has always embodied something precious. Something unique. Something worth defending. We were, as Neera said, an improbable experiment. A living, breathing testament to the revolutionary idea that a nation could be governed not by king or tyrant or warlord, but by the people themselves.

Instead of raw power and unquestioned edicts, our Framers set up an ingenious system of checks and balances. Instead of gallows and guillotines, we developed robust institutions - independent courts, a dogged free press, apolitical law enforcement - to ensure transparency, accountability, and the rule of law.

When immigrants like my great grandparents looked to the Old World, they saw poverty and pogroms. And when they looked to this country, they saw, with good reason, a Goldene Medina. A Golden Land. We drew the best and brightest to our shores, who rose from the huddled masses to become titans of industry, Nobel Laureates, even - God help us - members of the U.S. Congress.

Our nation, our democracy, never stood still. To secure the blessings of liberty, American GI's marched through Europe. To expand the promise of democracy, Americans from all walks of life marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. We became the envy of the world not because we were perfect, but because we always aspired to be more perfect.

Over the generations, that democracy we so faithfully tendered has delivered. Record prosperity. Unparalleled innovations. A standard of living that has climbed higher and higher. And so, we came to believe that our democracy was inevitable.

The generation that stopped fascism in its tracks imagined that freedom would forever be on the march. That walls would continue to come down. That rights and opportunity were ever expanding and never receding. We were wrong.

As we've now learned - painfully, perilously - our democracy is only as strong as its ability to meet the needs of the American people. Right now, it isn't. It's as simple, as stark, as that.

We asked people to believe in the American Dream as their wages stagnated, and the cost of housing, health care, and groceries soared. We imagined young people would continue to put faith in the system, when they're weighed down with debt and worried that the careers they've trained for will be rendered obsolete by an algorithm.

We expected our fellow citizens to safeguard this magnificent American experiment, even as the supposed guardians of democracy in this town have proven themselves too incapable - or too captured by big money or narrow interests - to care about the needs of those they claim to represent. That shining American promise was not broken by accident. It was broken intentionally.

By billionaires padding their stock portfolios and buying up politicians. By self-interested CEOs cynically dialing up the outrage and disinformation on their social media platforms. By politicians who saw more value in stoking grievance than solving problems, even as ordinary Americans fell further and further behind.

And into this uncertainty and despair rode a demagogue, down a golden escalator, promising that he alone could fix it. The devastation Trump wrought in his first term cannot be eclipsed from memory. Families torn apart. Allies forsaken. "Very fine people on both sides." All culminating in a mob of violent insurrectionists desecrating the U.S. Capitol to overturn the results of a free and fair election.

But this time around, something feels different. These past 242 days - especially in recent weeks - we have crossed some unseen Rubicon. The air of menace is heightened. The last threads tethering the President to reality are fraying. In this second Trump term, there are no Generals Mattis or Kelly to restrain Donald Trump's basest impulses. Only sycophants. Only enablers. Only a cabinet of cronies egging him on - even more incompetent, even more venal, even more subservient than in Trump's first term.

The Congressional GOP is now so servile that their occasional whispers of dissent dissipate in the wind, like the tear gas lobbed on our streets. And the Roberts Court? They're more than ready to rubber stamp Trump's brazenly unconstitutional actions. They've already given him the one thing that every would-be autocrat craves: Immunity. A license to break the law, because apparently he is the law.

In this moment, Trump is truly unshackled. And he vowed that he would bring retribution, and so he has. He teased that he wanted to become a dictator on Day One, and so he seems resolved to be. He called for "terminat[ing]" the Constitution, and every day he demonstrates just how hostile he is to our founding charter.

Look around us. It's not just that it can happen here. It is happening here. There is a particularly bitter irony in all this. As we approach the 250^th anniversary of our independence from a king, we are finding ourselves facing a man who would be king.

The Framers knew well this danger. Which is why they set down, in the Declaration of Independence, their long list of grievances against their British masters. These grievances are not nearly as familiar as the preamble of the Declaration, with all its poetic recitation of truths that are self-evident. So let me list a few:

"He has obstructed the administration of justice…," our founders grieved.

"Made judges dependent on his will alone…"

"[Cut] off trade with all parts of the world…"

"Depriv[ed] us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury…"

"Transport[ed] us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses…"

"Kept among us in times of peace, standing armies…"

If those grievances of our founders sound familiar, they should. Because the man who would rule America today has done all that and more.

He has weaponized the Department of Justice to go after political opponents, raiding their homes and combing through their mortgage applications. He has extorted media and law firms whose work he abhors, launching the most blatant attacks against the free press in American history and leaving us to wonder what will be left of the First Amendment when he's done.

He has usurped the power of Congress with unilateral tariffs, rescissions and illegal impoundment of funding already appropriated. He has declared war on Democratic-run cities, sending in the National Guard over the vehement objections of local officials.

He has targeted whole groups of Americans to fuel his nativist grievances - immigrants, Muslims, the LGBTQ+ community, women deprived of reproductive freedom. He has emboldened and elevated white nationalists and antisemites, and weaponized the fight against antisemitism to advance his own agenda.

He has monetized the presidency to pocket billions, accepting a Qatari "palace in the sky" while the American people struggle to pay their rent here on solid ground. He has established a protection racket for American businesses. The cost to avoid his regime's interference? Censorship, equity stakes, a percentage fee to Trump's Treasury, or a personal payment to the president himself.

He has imposed his own twisted reality ahead of our security and economic wellbeing: Dismissing apolitical generals who deviated from the party line. Forcing our Intelligence Community to justify his unfounded beliefs. Crusading against the independence of the Federal Reserve. Firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics when the jobs numbers were not to his liking.

He has sought to bend educational and cultural institutions - schools, universities, the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center - to reflect his distorted views. He is taking life-saving vaccines away from the public, because of an allergy to science and a kind of sickness taking hold of his regime.

We have seen this movie before. We know where this treacherous slope leads. It is Hungary under Orban, Turkey under Erdogan, El Salvador under Bukele. It is Venezuela under Maduro and Russia under Putin.

In Czechoslovakia, where I lived as a young prosecutor, I watched a cunning autocrat exploit inequality and xenophobia to literally divide that country in two. These regimes may promise a Golden Age or a return to lost greatness. And what do they deliver instead? Inflation. Debt. Corruption. A midnight knock and the sudden disappearance of critics and dissenters.

Now, I realize the picture I've painted is distressingly bleak. But importantly, vitally, there is cause for hope. Other nations have clawed their way back from authoritarian rule. Just as democracy is not inevitable or indefinite, neither is autocracy.

Where there was an Iron Curtain, there were also trade unionists gathered in solidarity at a shipyard in Gdansk. Candlelit vigils in Leipzig. Human chains stretching across the Baltics. Where there was Pinochet's brutal junta, there were students, priests, and workers singing that "Joy [was] Coming." Where there was apartheid law in South Africa, there were the voices of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu and townships across the country that eventually carried the day.

So how do we find our way back? How do we prevent the further erosion of our democracy?

The answer is never political violence like the kind we witnessed in Utah last week. Nor the kind we saw in Minnesota earlier this summer, or in Butler, Pennsylvania last July, or in San Francisco in 2022. Never.

The answer to how we defend our democracy is always with the tools of democracy: legislation, litigation, and mobilization.

Yes, Democrats are in the minority. Yes, our Republican colleagues have wholly abdicated their role as a coequal branch of government. That does not mean we cannot put up a fight.

I just reintroduced a package of reforms we call the Protecting Our Democracy Act to codify many of the norms Trump has violated with impunity. Under our legislation, a president could no longer enrich himself by using the power of his office. Whistleblowers would have added protections. Special employees would be subject to ethics and conflict of interest laws. And political candidates and parties would be explicitly prohibited from soliciting or accepting foreign assistance to influence an election.

Just yesterday, I joined Representatives Neguse, McGovern, and Lee to propose a constitutional amendment to permanently overturn Citizens United and restore some measure of faith that our elections do not belong to the highest bidder.

Yes, this is a tough Congress for this type of legislation. But their introduction lays out a roadmap for the day when sanity and principle return. It helps force a debate. And maybe, just maybe, it persuades a few friends across the aisle that the checks and balances that have safeguarded our liberty for two-and-a-half centuries are still worth preserving.

In the meantime, we're conducting oversight. Vigorous oversight. We're demanding accountability, and exposed wrongdoing throughout the federal government. We've spotlighted Trump's attacks on the rule of law with hearings the Majority refuses to hold. We've revealed the sickeningly cozy friendship between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, between the President and the pedophile. We're creating a record of every single abuse. Exposing executive malfeasance. Even in defeat, we are holding Republicans accountable.

The victories have been modest. But for the National Weather Service employees rehired after Democratic pressure, and the people who can still track storms and potential disasters as a result, it matters. For the California farmers still able to visit USDA field offices DOGE tried to shutter, these small wins are meaningful. They may, perhaps, even inspire other successes.

For pregnant mothers hungry for information about whether vaccines are safe for themselves and their children, we are bringing forward witnesses to share best practices, not base conspiracies.

And as we approach the government funding deadline at the end of the month, we are fully prepared to fight for lower healthcare costs in the nation's budget.

Then there is the second prong of our defense of democracy. The Atlantic calls it "The Anti-Trump Strategy That's Actually Working: Lawsuits, Lawsuits, and More Lawsuits."

Since January 2025, plaintiffs have brought more than 400 cases challenging the administration's abuses. Four hundred. Already, the courts have halted these egregious abuses in more than a hundred such cases. Wrongfully terminated civil servants - reinstated. Funding to the CDC, AmeriCorps, and other agencies - restored. Deportation flights - grounded. The dismantling of the Department of Education - halted. Trump's illegal tariffs - struck down, including by a Trump-appointed judge. These battles may not be over. The Roberts Court may yet excuse this executive malfeasance. But even a fragile bulwark delays autocracy's march. Even a temporary stay means another month that a mother can be with her family, a dedicated civil servant can do their job, a university can fulfill its mission. After all, you know the courts are doing something right when Stephen Miller is raging online about "Unelected rogue judges."

Ultimately, though, the most powerful check on Trump's authoritarianism is not Congress. It is not the courts. It is the American people. It is all of us. Each of us. Fear is Donald Trump's weapon of choice. Divide and conquer is his one repugnant strategy. Law firm against law firm. Media outlet against media outlet. Neighbor against neighbor.

He counts on us being too scattered to oppose him. Too scared of a Truth Social media post or an executive order - or the very real threat of physical harm -for anyone to push back.

So there is something incredibly powerful when someone looks King Donald in the eye and says simply and with their whole being - "Piss off!"

In the university [Harvard] that pledged it "will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights." The law firm [Jenner] that defiantly declared, "capitulating to unconstitutional government coercion… is simply not in our DNA." The federal prosecutor [Hagan Scotten] - a former clerk for Kavanaugh and Roberts-who resigned rather than obey a lawless order. "I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to file your motion," he said. "But it was never going to be me."

During the depths of apartheid, it was RFK - the heroic original, not the brainworm-addled junior - who reminded us that: "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

From the CDC to the Social Security Administration…

From statehouses to school boards to the streets…

Courageous, committed Americans have sent forth those ripples. And we have seen a powerful current, building and building. Just weeks ago, it was thousands marching here to protest the federal takeover of D.C. In June, it was more than 5 million Americans, in 2,000 cities and towns across the country, declaring that the United States will have no more kings.

We've seen it at the ballot box - in Wisconsin, in Iowa, in Virginia - where Americans are voting over and over for democracy. Where Democrats standing against Trump power-grabs are winning in deep-red districts, exceeding past Democratic performances in those districts by 15, 20, 47 points. This administration is working so feverishly to tamper with district lines and voter rolls because they sense what's coming.

And as Americans head to the polls in 2026, our voices, our ballots, will determine - in Lincoln's words - whether "we shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth." We should be under no illusions about the magnitude of the challenge before us. But neither can we allow ourselves to be paralyzed by it.

Lately, and thanks to my colleague, John Hickenlooper, I found myself quoting the Revolutionary War General Nathanael Green. He was the second-best known Revolutionary War general after Washington - which means nobody has ever heard of him.

Greene was responsible for Georgia and the Carolinas, and badly outnumbered by the British. But his strategy, he wrote to Washington, was simple: "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again."

Churchill, in last century's great struggle against authoritarianism, summoned his countrymen with much the same spirit: "We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle, nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools," he said, "And we will finish the job."

In our own time, in our own country, we recall Narciso Barranco, the landscaper taken by ICE. Beaten, bloodied, but asking only one thing of his sons: that they take up his tools and finish the job. That is our charge as well: To take up the tools of our democracy and finish the job. We will fight. We may get beat. But we will rise, and fight again. In this pivotal moment, that unyielding commitment is what is demanded of us all.

That is how we will sustain our sacred democratic inheritance and deliver - battered but unbroken - to the next generation. Thank you very much.

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