Former President Donald Trump was once again the subject of this week's Sunday shows, not only because of his announcement from Tuesday night that he is once more running for president, but because Elon Musk on Saturday night made the decision to reinstate his Twitter account. Few were more hysterical than Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who serves on the January 6 select committee and was named the lead impeachment manager in Trump's first impeachment.
Schiff spoke with host Jonathan Karl on ABC News' "This Week," with the reinstatement being the first topic. Schiff was particularly agitated that Musk reinstated Trump based on a "SNAP poll." While Musk did take a poll, which showed 51.8 percent wanted Trump's account reinstated, while 48.2 percent did not, it's worth reminding Schiff that Musk had hinted he would bring Trump's account back months ago.
Reinstate former President Trump
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2022
Karl connected the January 6 committee hearings with Trump's tweets, which Schiff was also too happy to jump on. "Watching the January 6th Committee hearings, Trump's tweets were a big part of the story to be told. What do you think of him being back on Twitter," Karl asked.
"I think it's a terrible mistake and you're absolutely right," Schiff said as he began a rant. "As we showed in the January 6th hearings, the president used that platform to incite that attack on the Capitol, his comments about the vice president, his own vice president, put Mike Pence's life in danger. He showed no remorse about that. He continues to lie about his actions on that day. He talks about pardoning the people who attacked police officers and attacked the Capitol that day. And it contradicts what Elon Musk said that he was going to establish a counsel to evaluate this and further contradicts Musk and his claimed concern about bots on his own platform to subject the decision to a poll on the platform that could be easily abused that way," he continued.
Schiff didn't just go after Trump, but Musk as well, jumping on another hysterical leftist bandwagon. "It just underscores the erratic leadership of Twitter now under Musk, but also the security concerns, with security people fleeing Twitter and what that means for the protection of Americans' private data," he also lamented.
It is a “terrible mistake” for Twitter’s Elon Musk to reinstate former Pres. Trump's account, Jan. 6 Committee member Rep. Adam Schiff tells @JonKarl.
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) November 21, 2022
“The president used that platform to incite that attack on the Capitol." https://t.co/Z7A44jOZLa pic.twitter.com/qZYVyqc3gg
Making Schiff's reaction even more hysterical is that Trump hasn't even gone back to Twitter yet. As Spencer highlighted earlier on Monday, there's legalese to do with Trump using social media accounts other than Truth Social. Trump himself has also communicated a preference for his own platform.
The January 6 select committee hearings came up once again in that Schiff told Karl "I think the evidence is there to make a referral" against the former and potentially future President Trump.
Schiff showed not only to be a sore loser when it comes to Trump being reinstated, but with Democrats and last week's election results. Karl reminded Schiff that "obviously, we have the Republicans winning back control, barely, of the House." Although Schiff won reelection, he will be stripped of his position on the House Intelligence Committee by Kevin McCarthy, likely the next Speaker of the House.
While McCarthy has been issuing such a warning for months, he recently doubled down on such a promise during his appearance on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures," as Sarah highlighted on Sunday.
In response to Karl's reminder, Schiff offered, "I suspect he will do whatever [Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Greene wants him to do." He also called McCarthy "a very weak leader of his conference," adding, "meaning that he will adhere to the wishes of the lowest common denominator. And if that lowest common denominator wants to remove people from committees, that's what they'll do."
Keeping with the drama and hysteria, Schiff lamented "it's going to be chaos with the Republican leadership and sadly, the kind of the crazy caucus has grown among the Republicans," referring to "Republicans who won primaries in deeply red districts are coming to Congress like the Marjorie Taylor Greenes and Paul Gosars" as a tragedy for the country."
Such a shameless take against McCarthy is to be expected from Schiff, who promoted on his own official website that back in April he appeared on MSNBC's "The ReidOut" and on "The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell" in September to declare McCarthy shouldn't become the speaker.
McCarthy overcame a hurdle last week, as Katie covered, when he earned 188 votes to challenger Rep. Andy Biggs' (R-AZ) 31 votes to be the nominee. He needs 218 votes to become the speaker, with a vote taking place in January.
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