Adam Schiff Offers a Crash Course in How to Leave Republican Opponents Speechless

Adam Schiff is a safe bet to win California’s open U.S. Senate seat — in a race where he’s likely to get more votes than any Senate candidate this year a battle with high stakes to control the camera.

The often-controversial Democratic representative from Burbank is leading by approx 25 points in most polls about Republican Steve Garvey, a 75-year-old political novice who won the GOP nomination primarily because older voters remembered his professional baseball career that began during President Richard Nixon’s first term.

But Schiff has something to show Democrats vying for Senate seats representing blue and purple states.

As Harvey tried to present himself as the primary candidate during a California Senate debate on Tuesday, Schiff wrapped Donald Trump’s record around the Republican.

Schiff dismissed Harvey as “MAGA’s mini-me in a baseball uniform.”

That’s a good line of attack — minus the baseball uniform — for Democratic candidates, especially those running in states where Republicans are more politically viable than California. In this era of deep political division and hyper-partisanship on both sides of the aisle, candidates are often overly cautious about how they frame their outreach to the general electorate. Some of this caution is understandable. But this should not preclude sharp attention to the lawless presidential candidate from the Republican Party.

The mistake too many Democrats have made this election cycle is imagining that Trump’s sharp criticism will somehow narrow their appeal to independents and swing Republicans. That makes no sense in a campaign season when mobilizing a broad anti-Trump base is critical for Democrats.

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is reaching out to Republicans, as her recent visit to Wisconsin with former House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney made clear. Still, anyone who watched the September debate between the two major-party presidential candidates knows well that Harris is also fighting Trump hard and smart. It’s hard to imagine that significant numbers of Trump supporters will enthusiastically elect the Democratic nominee for Senate in their home states. Yet Republicans are currently mounting campaigns that believe they can win independent votes and even some Democratic votes for GOP Senate candidates in blue and purple states.

It’s a sly focus in the campaigns of Republican Senate candidates like former Gov. Larry Hogan in Maryland, Nella Domenica in New Mexico, Mike Rogers in Michigan and Eric Howde in Wisconsin. All of these GOP candidates are making major pushes to attract the votes of moderate independents and Democrats.

Howde is running against Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin citing Democratic presidents such as John F. Kennedy on its website. In her race against U.S. Democrat Alyssa Slotkin for an open seat in Michigan, Rogers self-reflection as a candidate who “will look for any opportunity to be bipartisan” in the Senate. In New Mexico, where she faces Democratic U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, the Republican is running the “Democrats for Dominica” campaign. In his open Maryland race against Prince George’s County Supervisor Angela Alsobrooks, the Republican candidate is running a “Democrats for Hogan” campaign, mimicking Harris’ “Country over Party” slogan and saying he won’t vote for Trump in November But the notoriously thin-skinned Trump has supported Hogan, saying: “I would like to see him win. I think he has a good chance to win… From my point of view, I can say that I am for the party and I am for the country. And I would like him to win.”

Why is Trump for Hogan and other Republican Senate candidates who have tried, at least in some cases, to distance themselves from the GOP nominee? It’s simple. If Trump wins a second term in November, his ability to appoint cabinet members to carry out his Project 2025 agenda, as well as Supreme Court justices and other federal lawyers to defend him from impeachment, will be determined by which party controls Senate. Trump knows that if he has a Republican Senate, and especially if the Republican majority is filled with Republican senators from swing states and blue states, he will be unstoppable.

Likewise, if Harris wins but ends up with a Republican-controlled Senate, her ability to govern will be severely limited.

The stakes are too high for Democrats to make their moves in blue and swing states.

Schiff, the former United States attorney who led the first of two attempts by Congress to impeach Trump on his many felonies and misdemeanors, got it right in his debate from Harvey.

The Republican tried to make Schiff’s record as impeachment chief a liability for the Democrat, snapping: “I can’t imagine, Mr. Schiff, how you can get up every morning and have one mission, and that is to go after Donald Trump. »

“How can you think about and focus on one person every day when you have millions of people in California to take care of?” asked the Republican. “I think it’s unreasonable.”

But Schiff acknowledged that voters, whether they are Democrats, Republicans or independents, want their elected representatives to be prepared to hold government accountable.

“Mr. Harvey likes this particular attack because that’s what Trump likes to say. It’s his way of saying to MAGA viewers, “Hey, I’m one of you.” This is not what Californians are looking for, Mr. Garvey,” the Democrat said. “Mr. Harvey, I stood up to a corrupt president. Yes, I researched it. I impeached him. I was leading a trial in the Senate, and he incited a violent attack on the Capitol. And I was there that day, Mr. Harvey. I was there on January 6, when those rebels were breaking the doors and windows. The fact that you think it’s perfectly normal that you still want to support the guy who incited this (violence) tells me that you would never take the oath as seriously as I do.”

It was the dismantling that put everything into perspective.

The moderator of the debate invited the Republican to answer. But when the camera focused on Harvey, all the audience saw was a long, awkward silence.

Finally, Schiff said, “I left him speechless.”

Eventually Harvey mumbled a few empty words. But they did nothing to correct the course of his sinking ship.

In his takedown, Schiff revealed that the Republican is a supporter who, by Garvey’s own admission, “voted for Donald Trump three times.” And the Democrat left no doubt as to why he has been so outspoken against Trump — in the past and in this campaign. “I think Donald Trump has been a disastrous president,” Schiff said. “I think he threatened our democracy.”