Schiff: Time for Kelly to give Trump a ‘timeout’

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Monday responded to President Trump calling him “little Adam Schiff” and a liar by saying White House chief of staff John Kelly should give Trump “a timeout.”

“Look, first he attacked me some months ago, calling me ‘sleazy Adam Schiff,’ now it’s ‘little Adam Schiff’ which, I don’t know, seems better. It’s also confusing,” he said on CNN.

“But bottom line is I think it may be time for Gen. Kelly to give the president a timeout. The country would certainly benefit from that anyway,” the California Democrat added.

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Trump on Monday morning called Schiff “one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington,” and accused him of sharing confidential information, something the White House has previously suggested.

Schiff has denied the claims before and did so again Monday afternoon.

“It’s a baseless attack,” Schiff said.

Earlier Monday, the California lawmaker told Trump to “[turn] off the TV” and do “really anything else.”

Schiff, who is the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has been a vocal critic of Trump and in recent days and has been a central figure in objecting to the release of a Republican-crafted memo that alleges the Department of Justice abused a surveillance program to target the Trump campaign in 2016.

The four-page memo was released Friday after Trump declassified the document. The president tweeted that it “totally vindicates” him in the ongoing probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Schiff, however, said the memo does “quite the opposite,” and has pushed for the release of a Democratic countermemo.