WATCH: Sen. Schiff Reacts to DOJ Suing California Over False Election Claims: “We’re Fortunate That They’re So Incompetent”

Schiff told viewers of MS Now's All in with Chris Hayes that voting early is their best tool in responding to attempts by the Trump administration to sow chaos in the upcoming election

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined MS NOW's All in with Chris Hayes to discuss the Department of Justice's (DOJ) lawsuit against California, the administration's latest attempt at sowing chaos before the November elections.

This week, the Los Angeles County Registrar received a thumb drive from the DOJ, which the department claimed contained a list of "likely non-citizens" that California was expected to purge from its voter rolls. The password to the thumb drive came attached via 'Post-it' note, and the drive was not reviewed due to security concerns. The DOJ has now sued California for failure to meet the department's demands and deadline.

Senator Schiff explained that these tactics date back to the aftermath of the 2020 election, and are engineered to generate doubt in the security of our elections. The Senator encouraged Californians to vote early as a response to these attempts to undermine faith in the upcoming midterms.

View the full interview here.

Key Excerpts:

On why the DOJ has lawlessly targeted California's elections ahead of the midterms:

[…] They know at the Department of Justice because it's run by one of the president's criminal lawyers that the president is losing these Midterms badly. He has not brought the cost of living down. His war is unpopular. His tariff war is unpopular. And so, they are using any stratagem they can to try to suppress the vote, to change the vote. And now you have this desperate action in California, where they want California to take some random thumb drive and run it through their system.

On this administration's previous attempts at election interference and the validity of current claims:

[…] But where this has been tried in other states like in Nevada, the Justice Department, administration, initially claimed that there were 10,000-20,000 ballots of non-citizens and then revised the estimate down to well, maybe more like 100 or 200. The number turned out to be zero. Zero. But I think bigger picture, Chris, they want to cast these doubts now. They assume they will lose this litigation in the run-up to the election so that after the election, if and when they lose, they can try to contest the results.

[…] The feds have very limited role when it comes to elections. That is the province of the states. They lose time after time after time. The civil rights division, which is now the anti-civil rights division, has brought some of these cases. They've lost them all. I think they expect to lose this one, too. But nevertheless, you have the Attorney General of the United States soiling the name of that office, soiling his own reputation to put the department's imprimatur on this disenfranchisement, voter disenfranchisement effort. It's just scandalous, but thankfully such an incompetent effort.

On what can be done to secure the 2026 elections:

[…] The President in his last term claimed there were millions of undocumented people voting in California. That was a bigger lie, but it's still all part of the same big lie. So, they might contest seating someone. They might use it as justification to seize ballot boxes. One concern I have is, they're dispatching all kinds of poll watchers from the Justice Department, from the Civil Rights Division. There are going to be legitimate poll watchers out there. It wouldn't be difficult to seed the crowd with outside agitators, create violent incidents to give the administration some pretext to call out the guard or call out ICE or call out whoever. The best response in California is vote early, vote by absentee. We're all mailed a ballot in California where that's possible, but other states people should vote early if they can. But also, I think people should look at every effort this administration makes to tell them, we don't want people voting - we don't want citizens voting, because we're afraid of losing. We should look at all those efforts to stop people from voting and make it even more of a mission to vote and make sure your voice is heard.

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