Politics
After high-profile clashes with Trump, Adam Schiff will soon have a new title: Freshman
Rep. Adam B. Schiff is a darling of the Democrats, a fighter and political veteran accustomed to the limelight on Sunday talk shows and on the House floor.
In the Senate, the Burbank Democrat will carry a new title: freshman.
Schiff easily won California’s U.S. Senate race on Nov. 5, and will be sworn in next month to serve out the remainder of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s term. He will start a six-year Senate term in January, the same month that his most powerful antagonist, President-elect Donald Trump, will move back into the White House.
Trump’s election puts Schiff in a unique position for a freshman senator. Trump has vowed to spend his second term pursuing his political enemies, including Schiff, whom he has variously described as a “liar,” “traitor,” “shifty,” “evil,” “pencil neck” and one of the country’s “enemies from within.”
Schiff will be navigating a new workplace for the first time since 2001, contending with nuts-and-bolts issues like committee assignments and office space, and trying to build relationships to pass laws that benefit California. He will have to do so while contending with the expectations that come with his national profile as a vociferous Trump critic.
“When he walks onto the Senate floor for the first time, Republican senators are going to look around and say, ‘So there he is,’ ” said Jim Manley, a former senior advisor to the late Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid. “They’re going to try to size him up, because all they’ve read, all they’ve heard for the last few years, is the soon-to-be president demonizing the guy.”
Schiff declined to be interviewed for this story, but recently told Times columnist Mark Z. Barabak that he plans to focus on bringing down the cost of living for working- and middle-class families. He wants to rein in the rising costs of food, housing and child care and build more housing to address the state’s twin crises of high housing costs and homelessness.
“They’re the same issues, in part, that Republicans campaigned on and Trump campaigned on,” Schiff said. “Where they’re serious … they’ll find a willing ally.”
Despite that conciliatory tone, Schiff also has promised to stand firm against the incoming president if he threatens Californians. In a victory speech on election night, the senator-elect said that he was “committed to taking on the big fights to protect our freedoms and to protect our democracy.”
With Schiff’s election, California will have two male senators for the first time since the early 1990s, neither with much seniority. He’ll be the junior senator to Alex Padilla, who was appointed to the Senate in 2021 and elected to a full term in 2022.
Republicans will have a majority in the Senate next year, but Schiff will still wield a significant amount of power, said former California Sen. Barbara Boxer.
Republicans controlled the Senate for most of Boxer’s 24 years in the chamber, including several terms when they held 55 of 100 seats. Speaking from experience, she said, Democrats shouldn’t expect to control the discussion around bills, but there are other ways to make their points, including “taking to the floor, all night, overnight,” holding news conferences, and inviting expert speakers to their caucus meetings.
She said personal relationships and bipartisanship matter more in the Senate than in the House. She cited an old adage: The House of Representatives is the hot tea, and the Senate is the saucer where things cool down.
“I’m sure there are die-hard MAGA senators who aren’t going to be happy that Adam Schiff is showing up, but he’s a smart, thoughtful and reasonable person,” Boxer said. “The Senate is such a personal body. There’s more working across the aisle than it appears. That’s all built on relationships and trust and credibility.”
That atmosphere will help Schiff get beyond being pigeonholed as a Trump adversary, even if he continues to be on Trump’s list of enemies, said Democratic Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, who is retiring after 18 years in the Senate.
“The president-elect has a long list, and that list changes every day and it changes by the moment,” Cardin said. “It will not at all prevent senators from working with Adam Schiff.”
Schiff also worked to bolster his relationships with Senate Democrats before his election. He contributed $1 million from his campaign account to help Senate candidates across the country. He also campaigned alongside eight Democratic Senate candidates, including incumbent Sens. Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Sens.-elect Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Ruben Gallego of Arizona, all of whom won in close swing-state races.
How Schiff uses his voice will depend in part on his committee assignments. Freshmen senators typically get last pick, although Schiff could have a slight leg up considering his decades of experience, national stature and dedication to the party, and because serving out the last bit of Feinstein’s term gives him a sliver of seniority over his fellow freshmen, whose terms start in January.
Leaders from both major parties still have to negotiate how many senators from their caucuses will serve on each committee, and decide leadership roles for senior senators. Only then will open seats go to freshmen.
Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer of New York declined to answer questions about what roles Schiff might play in the Senate, but said he will be a “great addition” to the caucus.
The Senate can confirm or block high-level appointments by the president with a simple majority vote, meaning Trump’s Cabinet picks could be appointed without any support from Democrats.
But Trump has already signaled that he will try to bypass the Senate. On Sunday, he wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that the Senate’s next Republican majority leader “must agree” to empower him to make critical appointments unilaterally while the chamber is in recess. Without that power, Trump wrote, “we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner.”
Schiff has challenged that idea — writing on X that Trump’s nominee for attorney general, MAGA devotee and former Rep. Matt Gaetz, “must be rejected” by the Senate.
Beyond committees, the minority party often looks to the court of public opinion to get its message out.
When Republicans held all three branches of government in the early 2000s, Boxer began holding weekly news conferences to talk about President George W. Bush’s actions that posed environmental risks, recalled Rose Kapolczynski, who ran all four of Boxer’s Senate campaigns.
Boxer’s staff began taping together the papers listing the administration’s problematic moves on the environment. By the end, Kapolczynski said, Boxer was unfurling a 32-foot scroll for the cameras, and Democrats were armed with a to-do list on environmental issues when they retook the Senate in 2008.
Boxer said that Schiff will learn that he still has significant power, even in the minority party.
A UC Berkeley poll co-sponsored by the L.A. Times in September indicated that if Trump were elected again, nearly 6 in 10 likely California voters would want Schiff to prioritize “protecting California’s interests and opposing federal legislation that would undercut existing state laws and policies.”
Half of likely California voters surveyed said Schiff should focus on passing bipartisan legislation. Just under half said he should prioritize “standing up to the president and challenging his executive orders.”
Schiff’s contentious relationship with Trump — and Trump’s disdain for him — stem directly from Schiff’s work in the House to hold the Republican accountable before and during his first term in office.
Schiff, a former federal prosecutor, helped lead the House investigation into the Trump campaign’s dealings with Russia in the lead-up to and aftermath of the 2016 election. During that time, top Trump campaign officials met with a Russian asset in Trump Tower, Trump’s campaign manager shared internal polling data with another Russian asset, and Trump himself called on Russia to hack Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton’s emails.
House Republicans ultimately censured Schiff for saying publicly that there was “significant” and “compelling” evidence of collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III found that Russia had intervened on the Trump campaign’s behalf, and that the campaign had welcomed the help, but did not recommend that the Justice Department charge any Americans. Schiff has maintained that there was evidence of collusion, even if it did not lead to criminal charges.
Schiff was the lead manager of the trial in which the House voted to impeach Trump for asking Ukrainian officials to investigate Joe Biden, his expected 2020 Democratic presidential rival, while withholding military aid to the country.
The Burbank Democrat also helped investigate Trump’s role in inciting the U.S. Capitol insurrection that tried to block Congress’ certification of Biden’s election on Jan. 6, 2021, leading to Trump’s second impeachment.
The Senate acquitted Trump after both House impeachments, but he hasn’t forgotten the investigations, calling them “witch hunts” and painting Schiff as an immoral Democratic operator who was obsessed with toppling him from the White House.
In September, when Schiff was still hoping Vice President Kamala Harris would win the presidential election, he told The Times that Trump being returned to power would “elevate the personal risk” to himself.
He said Trump would be “more unshackled than ever, more threatening than ever, of his political enemies” since the recent Supreme Court ruling that sitting presidents have sweeping criminal immunity for actions taken in their official capacity.
“But I’m determined to do my job,” Schiff said.
Times staff writer Noah Bierman contributed to this report.
Politics
Video: Walz Drops Re-Election Bid as Minnesota Fraud Scandal Grows
new video loaded: Walz Drops Re-Election Bid as Minnesota Fraud Scandal Grows
transcript
transcript
Walz Drops Re-Election Bid as Minnesota Fraud Scandal Grows
Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota abandoned his re-election bid to focus on handling a scandal over fraud in social service programs that grew under his administration.
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“I’ve decided to step out of this race, and I’ll let others worry about the election while I focus on the work that’s in front of me for the next year.” “All right, so this is Quality Learing Center — meant to say Quality ‘Learning’ Center.” “Right now we have around 56 kids enrolled. If the children are not here, we mark absence.”
By Shawn Paik
January 6, 2026
Politics
Pelosi heir-apparent calls Trump’s Venezuela move a ‘lawless coup,’ urges impeachment, slams Netanyahu
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A San Francisco Democrat demanded the impeachment of President Donald Trump, accusing him of carrying out a “coup” against Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.
California state Sen. Scott Wiener, seen as the likely congressional successor to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, also took a swipe at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Wiener has frequently drawn national attention for his progressive positions, including his legislation signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom designating California as a “refuge” for transgender children and remarks at a San Francisco Pride Month event referring to California children as “our kids.”
In a lengthy public statement following the Trump administration’s arrest and extradition of Maduro to New York, Wiener said the move shows the president only cares about “enriching his public donors” and “cares nothing for the human or economic cost of conquering another country.”
KAMALA HARRIS BLASTS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S CAPTURE OF VENEZUELA’S MADURO AS ‘UNLAWFUL AND UNWISE’
California State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, speaks at a rally. (John Sciulli/Getty Images)
“This lawless coup is an invitation for China to invade Taiwan, for Russia to escalate its conquest in Ukraine, and for Netanyahu to expand the destruction of Gaza and annex the West Bank,” said Wiener, who originally hails from South Jersey.
He suggested that the Maduro operation was meant to distract from purportedly slumping poll numbers, the release of Jeffrey Epstein-related documents, and to essentially seize another country’s oil reserves.
“Trump is a total failure,” Wiener said. “By engaging in this reckless act, Trump is also making the entire world less safe … Trump is making clear yet again that, under this regime, there are no rules, there are no laws, there are no norms – there is only whatever Trump thinks is best for himself and his cronies at a given moment in time.”
GREENE HITS TRUMP OVER VENEZUELA STRIKES, ARGUES ACTION ‘DOESN’T SERVE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE’
In response, the White House said the administration’s actions against Maduro were “lawfully executed” and included a federal arrest warrant.”
“While Democrats take twisted stands in support of indicted drug smugglers, President Trump will always stand with victims and families who can finally receive closure thanks to this historic action,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said.
Supporters of the operation have pushed back on claims of “regime change” – an accusation Wiener also made – pointing to actions by Maduro-aligned courts that barred top opposition leader María Corina Machado from running, even as publicly reported results indicated her proxy, Edmundo González Urrutia, won the vote.
“Trump’s illegal invasion of Venezuela isn’t about drugs, and it isn’t about helping the people of Venezuela or restoring Venezuelan democracy,” Wiener added. “Yes, Maduro is awful, but that’s not what the invasion is about. It’s all about oil and Trump’s collapsing support at home.”
EX-ESPN STAR KEITH OLBERMANN CALLS FOR IMPEACHMENT OF TRUMP OVER VENEZUELA STRIKES THAT CAPTURED MADURO
Around the country, a handful of other Democrats referenced impeachment or impeachable offenses, but did not go as far as Wiener in demanding such proceedings.
Rep. April McClain-Delaney, D-Md., who represents otherwise conservative “Mountain Maryland” in the state’s panhandle, said Monday that Democrats should “imminently consider impeachment proceedings,” according to TIME.
McClain-Delaney said Trump acted without constitutionally-prescribed congressional authorization and wrongly voiced “intention to ‘run’ the country.”
SCHUMER BLASTED TRUMP FOR FAILING TO OUST MADURO — NOW WARNS ARREST COULD LEAD TO ‘ENDLESS WAR’
One frequent Trump foil, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., cited in a statement that she has called for Trump’s impeachment in the past; blaming Republicans for letting the president “escape accountability.”
“Today, many Democrats have understandably questioned whether impeachment is possible again under the current political reality. I am reconsidering that view,” Waters said.
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“What we are witnessing is an unprecedented escalation of an unlawful invasion, the detention of foreign leaders, and a president openly asserting power far beyond what the Constitution allows,” she said, while appearing to agree with Trump that Maduro was involved in drug trafficking and “collaborat[ion] with… terrorists.”
Wiener’s upcoming primary is considered the deciding election in the D+36 district, while a handful of other lesser-known candidates have reportedly either filed FEC paperwork or declared their candidacy, including San Francisco Councilwoman Connie Chan.
Politics
California Congressman Doug LaMalfa dies, further narrowing GOP margin in Congress
California Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) has died, GOP leadership and President Trump confirmed Tuesday morning.
“Jacquie and I are devastated about the sudden loss of our friend, Congressman Doug LaMalfa. Doug was a loving father and husband, and staunch advocate for his constituents and rural America,” said Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the House majority whip, in a post on X. “Our prayers are with Doug’s wife, Jill, and their children.”
LaMalfa, 65, was a fourth-generation rice farmer from Oroville and staunch Trump supporter who had represented his Northern California district for the past 12 years. His seat was one of several that was in jeopardy under the state’s redrawn districts approved by voters with Proposition 50.
Emergency personnel responded to a 911 call from LaMalfa’s residence at 6:50 p.m. Monday, according to the Butte County Sheriff’s Office. The congressman was taken to the Enloe Medical Center in Chico, where he died while undergoing emergency surgery, authorities said.
An autopsy to determine the cause of death is planned, according to the sheriff’s office.
LaMalfa’s district — which stretches from the northern outskirts of Sacramento, through Redding at the northern end of the Central Valley and Alturas in the state’s northeast corner — is largely rural, and constituents have long said they felt underrepresented in liberal California.
LaMalfa put much of his focus on boosting federal water supplies to farmers, and seeking to reduce environmental restrictions on logging and extraction of other natural resources.
One LaMalfa’s final acts in the U.S. House was to successfully push for the reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools Act, a long-standing financial aid program for schools surrounded by untaxed federal forest land, whose budgets could not depend upon property taxes, as most public schools do. Despite broad bipartisan support, Congress let it lapse in 2023.
In an interview with The Times as he was walking onto the House floor in mid-December, LaMalfa said he was frustrated with Congress’s inability to pass even a popular bill like that reauthorization.
The Secure Rural Schools Act, he said, was a victim of a Congress in which “it’s still an eternal fight over anything fiscal.” It is “annoying,” LaMalfa said, “how hard it is to get basic things done around here.”
In a statement posted on X, California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff said he considered LaMalfa “a friend and partner” and that the congressman was “deeply committed to his community and constituents, working to make life better for those he represented.”
“Doug’s life was one of great service and he will be deeply missed,” Schiff wrote.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in a statement called LaMalfa a “devoted public servant who deeply loved his country, his state, and the communities he represented.”
“While we often approached issues from different perspectives, he fought every day for the people of California with conviction and care,” Newsom said.
Flags at the California State Capitol in Sacramento will be flown at half-staff in honor of the congressman, according to the governor.
Before his death, LaMalfa was facing a difficult reelection bid to hold his seat. After voters approved Proposition 50 in November — aimed at giving California Democrats more seats in Congress — LaMalfa was drawn into a new district that heavily favored his likely opponent, State Sen. Mike McGuire, a Democrat who represents the state’s northwest coast.
LaMalfa’s death puts the Republican majority in Congress in further jeopardy, with a margin of just two votes to secure passage of any bill along party lines after the resignation of Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Monday evening.
Adding to the party’s troubles, Rep. Jim Baird, a Republican from Indiana, was hospitalized on Tuesday for a car crash described by the White House as serious. While Baird is said to be stable, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson from Louisiana, will not be able to rely on his attendance. And he has one additional caucus member – Thomas Massie of Kentucky – who has made a habit of voting against the president, bringing their margin for error down effectively to zero.
President Trump, addressing a gathering of GOP House members at the Kennedy Center, addressed the news at the start of his remarks, expressing “tremendous sorrow at the loss of a great member” and stating his speech would be made in LaMalfa’s honor.
“He was the leader of the Western caucus – a fierce champion on California water issues. He was great on water. ‘Release the water!’ he’d scream out. And a true defender of American children.”
“You know, he voted with me 100% of the time,” Trump added.
A native of Oroville, LaMalfa attended Butte College and then earned an ag-business degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He served in the California Assembly from 2002 to 2008 and the California State Senate from 2010 to 2012. Staunchly conservative, he was an early supporter of Proposition 209, which ended affirmative action in California, and he also pushed for passage of the Protection of Marriage Act, Proposition 22, which banned same-sex marriage in California.
While representing California’s 1st District, LaMalfa focused largely on issues affecting rural California and other western states. In 2025, Congressman he was elected as Chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, which focuses on legislation affected rural areas.
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