WATCH: Sen. Schiff Warns of Trump’s Intent to Subvert Midterm Election, Erode Confidence in American Democracy on ABC’s This Week

Schiff: "…We need to make sure to insist, among other things, that we don't have ICE agents at polling places. We're going to make sure that those elections take place and that they're free and that they're fair, because this is what's going to stop this country from sliding into some kind of dictatorship."

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined ABC's This Week with Jonathan Karl to sound the alarm on President Trump's clear and ongoing attempts to interfere in the upcoming midterm elections.

Schiff pointed out the extraordinary steps taken by the administration to undermine free and fair elections by the FBI's search and seizure of ballot boxes in Fulton County, Georgia, and the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard's involvement in the raid - someone who has no election remit in terms of domestic law enforcement.

Additionally, Schiff emphasized that these unprecedented actions by the administration send the clear message they will not accept an election that they lose and warns of their intentions to try to overturn those results. Schiff demanded that the upcoming DHS funding bill negotiations include discussions of addressing the Trump administration's enforcement tactics and plans to deploy ICE agents at polling places.

View the full interview here.

Key Excerpts:

On Trump laying the groundwork to interfere in the midterm elections, and the need to stand up against his attempt to undermine elections:

[…] He fully intends to try to subvert the elections. He will do everything he can to suppress the vote. And if he loses the vote, and I think the Republicans now expect they'll get a real drubbing in the midterms, he's prepared to try to take some kind of action to overturn the result. And we really shouldn't question that. We saw him try - to the point of insurrection - to overturn the 2020 election. We see him now taking these extraordinary steps with an election, now five years ago. He's basically telling us he intends to interfere in this upcoming election.

He hasn't brought prices down. There's chaos and killing in American streets by ICE agents. The public has turned against him. In every election we've had since his election, the voters have swung wildly against him. And as he said at that prayer breakfast, his ego cannot stand another loss. So, we have to prepare for the worst. We have to prepare in every way we can. And frankly, the best preparation we have is not the Congress, because Republican senators for the most part are not going to stand up to him. The courts are useful at the lower levels, but at the Supreme Court, they have left him unrestrained. The best protection we have is to mobilize the largest voter turnout in U.S. history, to so overwhelm the vote and get the kind of margins we saw in Texas in that special election so that there's no way they can cheat.

On the Director of National Intelligence's involvement in the seizure of ballot boxes:

[…] This is alarming at every level. First of all, why is the FBI conducting a raid five years after the fact when there were three recounts in Georgia? Why are they even there? And, remember, this is the site of the election in which the president called Brad Raffensperger, the Secretary of State, the Republican Secretary of State, and demanded he find 11,780 votes that don't exist. So, what are they doing there now? Are they going to manufacture some claim having seized ballot boxes, that there were, in fact, 11,780 votes? And why is the director of intelligence who has no role in domestic law enforcement there? What is the president personally doing on the phone with FBI agents during a raid?

All of this is unprecedented. I think all of this is intended to send a message. And the message is, "We will not tolerate or accept an election that we lose." And we need to pay attention to this. It's why, I think, in these budget discussions we need to make sure to insist, among other things, that we don't have ICE agents at polling places. We're going to make sure that those elections take place and that they're free and that they're fair, because this is what's going to stop this country from sliding into some kind of dictatorship.

On safeguarding American democracy from the President's attempts to meddle in the upcoming election:

[…] Time after time, we have seen [Republican leaders] initially make statements of willingness to stand up to the president and his lawlessness - in this case, his willful defiance of the Constitution, but we have seen that melt away. But also, this is a president more than willing to act lawlessly. More than willing, I think, as we see in Georgia, to deploy the Director of National Intelligence who has no role in elections whatsoever. Her job is to oversee the work of the intelligence agencies outward focusing on foreign threats, not to create a threat to our domestic tranquility by interfering in elections. But that's what they're doing.

So, we cannot ignore what they're telling us they're going to do, because time and time again, we have seen that they're willing to go to extraordinary and lawless lengths. The last, best hope for our democracy is not going to be the Congress or the court, it's going to be the American people. And the American people are speaking out, and they are protesting, and they're going to turn out, I hope, in the most massive numbers in November.

[…] We need to call it out. We need to spell it out. Even as they're saying people don't trust the elections, they're the reason why people don't trust the elections, because they keep telling the American people that somehow American elections are untrustworthy. It is the same thing you see of tin-pot dictators anywhere.

On Republicans push for the SAVE Act to disenfranchise millions:

[…] This is another way to simply try to suppress the vote. And the last thing I think we want to do is discourage more people, more citizens, from voting while they're attacking those same elections, while they're trying to do away with absentee ballot voting, while they're trying to do away with being able to register to vote through the DMV or by the mail. So, it's part of the broader disenfranchisement effort.

###