LOS ANGELES — Rep. Adam Schiff has announced his bid for U.S. Senate in the 2024 election.
Schiff is running for Senator Dianne Feinstein’s seat, who hasn’t committed to running for reelection.
Schiff joins his Democratic colleagues’ Reps. Katie Porter and Barbara Lee in what is shaping up to be a tight-contested race.
Schiff announced his Senate run a few days after being removed from the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which he had been a member of since 2008 and chair of since 2018.
“Inside the Issues” host Alex Cohen sat down with Schiff to talk about his removal from the committee, hours before he announced his Senate campaign.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy removed Schiff — a political move that Schiff believes results from his role in leading the impeachment of former President Donald Trump.
“No speaker has ever interfered with the membership of the Intelligence Committee. It’s viewed as one of the most serious national security committees on the Hill,” Schiff said, “And what [McCarthy’s] doing, I think, is going to do great damage to the committee, as well as the intelligence community’s willingness to share information with that committee.”
In a letter sent to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, rejecting both Schiff and fellow Democrat representative Eric Swalwell from the committee, McCarthy believes years of service can’t be the sole criteria for membership.
“It is my assessment that the misuse of this panel during the 116th and 117th Congress severely undermined its primary national security and oversight mission — ultimately leaving our nation less safe,” McCarthy wrote.
In response to the letter, Schiff says the main reason for rejection from the intelligence committee was done by McCarthy to win over Republican votes so he could be named Speaker of the House.
“This is a leader, McCarthy, who is putting George Santos on committees, a serial fraudster. He’s putting people like Marjorie Taylor-Green and Paul Gosar, who have encouraged violence against their colleagues, who speak at White Nationalist rallies,” Schiff said.
On the heels of being rejected from the House Intelligence Committee, and now entering a campaign for Senate, Schiff made it clear he would not be silenced. Though he was uncommitted about running for Senate Wednesday night, Schiff did lay out his priorities going forward.
“I do want to just relay how determined I am at this critical point in our history to protect our democratic institutions, but also to fight for an economy that works for everyone,” Schiff said. “I think part of the reason we’ve been in such trouble as a democracy is that for millions of Americans, they see their quality of life becoming less than their parents’… and has left many open to a demagogue, who comes along and promises he alone can fix it.”
Preserving democracy and improving the economy for everyone are the two top priorities, and ones he looks to lean on as he runs to be California’s next Senator.
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