WATCH: “It Doesn’t Solve the Pulte Problem:” Sen. Schiff Reacts to Trump’s Nomination of Clayton as Director of National Intelligence on ABC News Live

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined ABC's News Live to react to the nomination of U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton as the next Director of National Intelligence. Schiff emphasized his lack of experience within the intelligence community, and how the nomination does not negate the concerns about the installation of Bill Pulte as Acting Director in the interim.

Schiff also called out President Trump's irrational behaviors throughout his illegal Iran war saying his whiplash judgment makes him "lose all credibility." The Senator has co-led War Powers Resolutions that would direct Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from Iran.

View the full interview here.

Key excerpts:

On the nomination of Jay Clayton as next Director of National Intelligence:

He'll be given a fair consideration. He doesn't have much experience within the intelligence community, probably no experience within the community. He has experience as a U.S. Attorney and he was an SEC Chairman, those are very different jobs than leading all of the intelligence agencies.

[…] But it doesn't solve the Pulte problem, and that is, there's no way I can see the extension of this 702-surveillance authority while an acting DNI Bill Pulte, if he's allowed to go forward, has access to that data.

On Bill Pulte as Acting Director of National Intelligence:

[…] We don't want to see the intelligence community politicized the way it has been. Pulte would make that problem even worse, and at this point we still don't have any indication from the White House that they're prepared to pull Pulte. And here's the other thing, there is a perfectly good professional who is the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence. They're already in place. There doesn't need to be a temporary appointment of some political hack like Bill Pulte.

On the ongoing negotiations to FISA:

[…] We're still in the process of trying to negotiate reforms to 702. I think 702 is a really important program. We need to keep it going, but it also needs to be reformed to correct some of the abuses of that program. And there were negotiations to do that when the president essentially tossed a grenade into the negotiations by putting Bill Pulte's name as an Acting Director of National Intelligence. So, he needs to pull Pulte's name so that folks can get back to negotiating how we reform and extend 702.

On Jay Clayton's background:

I want to look at his background in more depth. He took the job as the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York never having been a prosecutor. So, I'd like to find out what his performance has been like? Has he been a competent manager? Has he conducted himself in an apolitical manner? It should be an apolitical job. I served in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles for almost six years, it was an apolitical position. Or has he made it partisan? And likewise, in his tenure at SEC, was he looking out for consumers or was he only looking out for big banks. This is, I think, going to be important too, whether he has the privacy interests of the American people.

On Trump's deal with Iran:

Sadly, we have really no idea to believe. The president, in the morning, he was saying that we were going to bomb Iran extensively, we were going to take Kharg Island, we were going to seize their oil assets. That was the morning. So, now in the afternoon it's a completely different story. Often, what we hear from the president is completely different than we hear from other international partners. So, we just don't know what to believe. But I will say this, the president has said this so often, made these threats so often, only to - in true whiplash fashion - completely change his position in a matter of minutes, if not hours. He loses all credibility. The threats cease to have force when he changes his mind every 15 minutes.

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