California Democrat Sen. Adam Schiff told a shocking story when he appeared Friday on the HBO show “Real Time” with host Bill Maher about when he realized his party was in trouble.
The well-known ‘Trump-Russia collusion’ hoaxer acknowledged that his party could possibly lose power in deep blue California, as a recent poll showed that 50 percent of those surveyed would consider voting for a Republican for governor in 2026.
He said he believes that rampant crime is an issue, as he attempted to distance himself from the soft-on-crime policies he has championed for years.
“So we’re going to have to change how we do business in California. We’re going to have to address people’s legitimate concerns about crime,” he said after years of supporting controversial bail reform programs.
“I was in South San Francisco two years ago after I had an experience in the city that all too many people had when my luggage was stolen out of my car. They tell you don’t ever leave your luggage in the car. I never do until the one time I did. And of course it got stolen,” he said.
Organized theft rings, like flash mobs that target retail outlets, have also become commonplace in California as the penalties for theft of items less than $950 have been lowered.
With that in mind, the senator spoke of a conversation he had with a cashier at a local Target store as the host quipped, “You went there by yourself, not an assistant?”
“I uh… I think I went there… well yes, I had somebody drop me off at the store,” he said as the audience laughed.
“Well, he was honest in admitting it, right?” Maher quipped.
He said that the cashier was “hard to find” just to unlock some common items like shampoo.
“So that’s one thing. And then I get to the cashier. The cashier asked me if I wanted one of those Target bags with a little bullseye on it. And I said, ‘yes, that Target bag is going to be my luggage for the next two days,’” he said.
“And she asked me what happened. And I told her and she basically said in not so many words that Democrats are a***oles,” the senator said.
“And I thought, you know, if the cashier in South San Francisco at 10 o’clock at night believes that Democrats are a***oles because the shampoo is locked up and my stuff got stolen out of the trunk, we’ve got a major problem that we have to address,” he said.
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Earlier this month, however, Schiff expressed frustration over the Democratic Party’s lack of a “coordinated response” to President Donald Trump during an interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl.
“I think the lack of a coordinated response in the State of the Union was a mistake, and frankly, it took the focus off of where it should have been, which is on the fact that the president spoke for an hour and 40 minutes and had nothing to say about what he would do to bring down costs for American families that were watching that lengthy address, sitting at the kitchen table hoping he would offer something to help them afford a new home or pay their rent, afford health care, or afford child care,” Schiff said.
The lawmaker addressed the critiques by Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, where he called the Democrats’ situation “a sad cavalcade of self-owns and unhinged petulance.”
“They’re destroying the economy, and they’re making it harder and harder for Americans to afford things. That’s where we need to keep the focus, that’s why we lost the last election, because we weren’t laser-focused on the high cost of living and what they’re doing now is just making it so much worse,” Schiff claimed — falsely, according to the most recent economic data.