WATCH: Sen. Schiff Sounds the Alarm on Trump’s Election Threats, ICE Deployments at Polling Places on MS NOW

Washington, D.C. - Last night, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined MS NOW's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell to condemn Steve Bannon's call for ICE agents to "surround the polls" and the Trump administration's ongoing attempts to undermine free and fair elections.

Schiff also pointed to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's involvement in the recent seizure of voting machines in Puerto Rico and ballot boxes in Fulton County, Georgia - making it clear these operations are far outside the scope of her role and emphasized that this is a clear sign that the federal government is going to try to intervene in the 2026 midterm elections.

Additionally, Schiff demanded that the upcoming DHS funding bill include statutory guardrails to address the Trump administration's enforcement tactics and their plans to deploy ICE to sensitive locations like voting places, schools, and churches.

View the full interview here.

Key Excerpts:

On the Trump administration's willingness to try to interfere in U.S. elections:

[…] We just learned that Tulsi Gabbard oversaw some kind of a law enforcement operation in Puerto Rico that seized voting machines and data. The DNI, the Director of National Intelligence, has no election remit in terms of domestic law enforcement. But we are seeing a concerted effort to try to overturn what they expect will be a very unfavorable election against them.

So, we are doing everything possible to prepare. Of course, we will litigate. Of course, we will do everything possible to prevent Trump from deploying essentially the palace guard to polling places. This is what tin-pot dictators do. But in addition to litigation, we're developing legislative strategies. It will also, I think, most importantly, mean that we have to mobilize people to turn out in such high numbers to so overwhelm the elections in the sense of winning them overwhelmingly, that they're not close. That there's no opportunity to contest them.

On Democrats' top priorities in the new DHS funding bill:

[…] What we're demanding in this is that there be no ICE presence at sensitive locations like voting places, like schools, like churches. So that certainly is a very important element. In terms of the most important element, I would definitely rank protecting our elections, the ultimate safeguard in a constitutional democracy as a very, very top priority.

But we also have to end these deadly sweeps, we have to end the deadly use of force, we need independent investigations, we need ICE to be identified, not wearing masks, but wearing body cams and identification. There are a lot of high priorities.

On the need to ensure election security in the 2026 midterms:

[…] Even if we are successful in banning ICE from being present at polling places, that won't necessarily stop Donald Trump from deploying the military or deploying other law enforcement agencies. We're going to have to do what we did, basically, in the run-up to the 2020 election, which is try to anticipate all of the illegality, all of the efforts to suppress the vote, all of the efforts to overturn the vote that may take place during, before, and after the midterms. This is something I discussed with leadership, again, just today on the Senate floor. So, we are gearing up and we are preparing.

But hearing Steve Bannon make these claims, hearing Speaker Johnson cast out on the elections - and what a shameful thing, Lawrence, we heard from him yesterday when he was saying that, "Well, in California, we have House Republican candidates who are ahead on Election Day and fall behind every time there's a new round of absentee ballots." Just shameful to suggest, well, that's inherently fraudulent. And he goes on to say, "Well, I can't prove any of this." But people are doubting our elections. Well, of course, they're doubting them when people like the Speaker are pushing out lies, when the President is pushing out lies, when Steve Bannon is pushing out lies, and when they've got their media amplifiers to amplify those lies.

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