When it comes to screening movies, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. has eclectic taste.

“This will sound very trite, but ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’” Schiff said, confessing the 1962 Gregory Peck classic to be his favorite movie — with a caveat. "The Big Lebowski," the 1998 Coen brothers film, is his favorite comedy...one he loves so much that he quoted it in the Oval Office last week after President Joe Biden signed an executive order to expand two California monuments.

Biden, he said, loves to quote movies, though the president admitted his staff doesn't always get his references. Schiff shared with Biden that he loves quipping quotes from films as well, then glanced down at the floor and realized he had a unique opportunity.

“I said, ‘Mr. President, this rug really ties the whole room together,'” chuckled Schiff, referring to the dark blue rug bearing the presidential seal. (The president laughed, Schiff said, though he decided against asking if Biden really got the reference.)

Like his wide-ranging taste in movies, Schiff is hoping to appeal to the masses this fall after a brutal California U.S. Senate primary that showed just how divided idealistically voters in the Golden State can be. His Democratic opponents, Reps. Katie Porter and Barabara Lee represented more liberal factions of the party. Schiff represents a more middle-of-the-road voter.

Despite boxing out Lee and Porter to face former Los Angeles Dodger and Republican nominee Steve Garvey, the Burbank Democrat says he is not taking any vote for granted in sapphire blue California.

“My view is you run scared, or you run unopposed. So I'm campaigning hard, traveling all around the state and really enjoying it. It's a great opportunity to get to know the different communities and challenges facing every part of this magnificent state,” said Schiff. 

The last time a Republican was elected to statewide office in California was in 2006 when Arnold Schwartzenager became Governor. But while Schiff is confident in his own campaign, he’s not missing the opportunity to take swipes at Garvey, tying him to former President Donald Trump.

“Mr. Garvey voted for Trump repeatedly. He won't say what he's going to do now, which either means he's going to support him again — notwithstanding all of his unethical, democracy destroying conduct — or he's not going to support him. But he lacks the courage of his convictions. You won't tell the public? Well, when you're a senator, your votes are public, you don't get to hide.”

Last month, POLITICO reported Garvey had nearly $4 million in liens on himself and his businesses, something Schiff is using to connect the Republican candidate to Trump.

“I think this is just another illustration of the problem of elected officials, or potential elected officials who say, essentially, the rules are for other people. You know, paying taxes is for suckers. That seems to be the view of former President Trump. It seems to be the view of Steve Garvey. But look, I think, you know, we all need to play by the rules,” argued Schiff. “If you're going to ask California to say, trust me that I know how to conduct business so that I am a responsible business person, then you have to prove it. And his record is not encouraging.”

A spokesperson for Garvey told Politico last month he was working on paying off the debt when the story was published. Spectrum News reached out to Garvey’s team for further comment. In a response, his spokesperson did not acknowledge a question regarding Garvey's taxes, instead sharing a statement attacking Schiff for accepting an endorsement from Barbara Lee.

Garvey, for his part, has publicly accused Schiff of being silent on the campus protests that have been popping up across the country in response to the war between Israel and Hamas.

“The right to protest, the right to assemble and disagree and petition the government is a fundamental American right part of the First Amendment," Schiff said. "But it is also very much the law that a university can set a time, place, and manner restriction in a content-neutral way that basically says whether you're for the war or against the war for Israel — or whatever the case may be — a university can say, ‘here's where you can demonstrate, you cannot camp out on our campus, because that interferes with people's ability to walk through campus.’ And they can enforce those rules."

“If people want to engage in civilly disobedient conduct and get arrested, then they should not hide their faces behind ski masks,” he continued. “They should never engage in violence, they should never engage in vandalism. They should never engage in hate speech. And the degree to which Jewish students on campus feel unsafe and unwelcome, the degree of anti-semitism we're seeing on college campuses and elsewhere, is deplorable.”

No student of any faith, he said, shouldn't feel unwelcome on a college campus.

But there is growing concern amongst Democrats that a protest vote, driven by Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war, could hand the White House and down-ballot races to Republicans. Schiff said he is trying to make the case to young voters that “if you don't like the way things are heading, you don't like the way things are run, vote — because if you voted your numbers, you will change the direction of the country. And that that's empowering.”

Voter turnout in California for the primary election was low, despite every voter receiving a mail in ballot per a 2021 law signed by Governor Gavin Newsom. Schiff indicated that he believed it was due to the fact the race at the top of the ticket was all but uncontested for both Democrats and Republicans.

“In a presidential cycle, it's the presidential race that drives turnout. I am going to be working my tail off to drive up turnout to do whatever I can in California, not only in my own race, but there are six or seven competitive House seats in California [that] could control or determine who controls Congress," he said, promising to focus his campaign efforts in parts of the state to draw support to at-risk Democratic seats.

“I'm going to be particularly focusing my campaign efforts in those parts of California, where every voter I turn out to support me is also going to turn out and support others running on the same ticket.”

When it comes to his own bid for Senate, Schiff says he plans to focus on affordability issues, such as childcare and housing. 

“I think the twin crises of a lack of affordable housing and homelessness are really only to the same core problem — that is, we don't have enough housing, period. We need to build hundreds of thousands of units of new housing, so that people who are working and have a decent income…who are working full time could afford a place to live, and that we don't have so many people living on the street,” said Schiff. “Until we solve the supply problem, we're never going to solve either challenge. And I think at the federal level, we can provide tax incentives to build a lot more housing.”

Schiff says when it comes to the possibility that Trump could be re-elected and if he is elected senator that they would have to work together, he promised to “get things done, no matter who the president is.”

“But I do fear that if he were ever to become president, all of us are going to have to be spending a lot of time just defending our democracy, our institutions, protecting the Justice Department from being weaponized against his opponents, protecting civil servants from being essentially drummed out of their jobs and in favor of political hacks. We're going to have to be doing some very basic defense of our democracy.”

But, as Schiff’s favorite song by Tom Petty goes, he says he “won’t back down” from the fight.

“The problem with Donald Trump is he wants to attack our very democracy, and someone who wants to essentially bring down the system is not someone that you can generally work with," Schiff said. "And so I think this is a democracy inflection point. This is not a typical election — the stakes are much higher.”