So now U.S. Congressman Adam Schiff, a heavy favorite to become a California U.S. senator next month, is one of this nation’s “enemies from within,” according to Donald Trump.

Trump has been calling Schiff names for years, notably since the Los Angeles area Democratic congressman became the most public leader of the effort to impeach the former president in 2019 and 2020.

Saturday, Trump told a Coachella rally that Chinese President Xi Jinping was a “very smart guy….a brilliant guy.”

Trump was less charitable to Schiff.

“The worst people are the enemies from within. The sleazebags, like the guy you’re gonna elect to the Senate, shifty Adam Schiff. He’s a sleazebag,” Trump said.

Trump explained Sunday why he saw Schiff as dangerous.

“We have two enemies: We have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within. And the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia and all these countries,” Trump told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”

“But the thing that’s tougher to handle are these lunatics that we have inside, like Adam Schiff — Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff,” Trump said..

Without specifically citing Schiff, Trump said any enemy uprising should be “very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

More insults

Trump Saturday didn’t stop with his enemy insult. “He’s a major lowlife,” he said of his congressional nemesis.

After charging that California’s electoral system was “so corrupt,” he turned back to Schiff. “You’re gonna have shifty Adam Schiff. I know him well because he conceived of the Russia hoax, right, the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax.”

Trump couldn’t resist one more dig at Schiff, one of the former president’s old favorites.

“You’re not supposed to talk about somebody’s looks so I won’t,” Trump said. Then he did.

“To me, he’s one of the least attractive human beings I’ve ever seen. Not a stupid person. He’s got the smallest neck I’ve ever seen. His neck is like so small and his head is large,” Trump said.

That means “he’s not being held up by much. I can guarantee you he will not be playing for your local football team.”

Republicans have been echoing Trump’s view of Schiff for years. Schiff is running for the Senate against Republican Steve Garvey, who in a debate last week told Schiff, “If you’re elected to the U.S. Senate it’ll be the most toxic Senate in history.”

Schiff responded to Trump with a tweet. “Just as he incited a mob to attack the Capitol, he again stokes violence against those who oppose him. He must be defeated,” the congressman said.

In another tweet, Schiff said Trump had engaged in “yet another nonsensical rant about me filled with tired insults, lies about voting booths, and more, this time in my home state of California. Seriously, Donald. Why are you so obsessed with me?”

‘Arrest for Treason?’

Trump’s ire stems from Schiff’s years on the House Intelligence Committee. It looked into a July 2019 call from Trump to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, where Trump asked Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. Biden was seen as a strong challenger in the 2020 presidential election.

At a September House Intelligence Committee hearing, Schiff summarized the call, which would ultimately lead to impeachment for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Schiff said at the time that Trump’s comments on the call “reads like a classic organized crime shakedown.”

Trump was infuriated. “Arrest for treason?” he asked about Schiff in a tweet.

In 2020, the Democratic-led House impeached Trump, led by Schiff. Trump was acquitted in the Senate, where a two-thirds majority was needed to acquit. While the House investigation found that Russia attempted to influence the 2016 election, some Schiff assertions were not backed up by special counsel probes of Trump.

All this illustrates how “Schiff scares Trump. Accusations of Russian collusion are a sensitive subject for Trump,” said John Pitney, professor of American government at Claremont McKenna College. Pitney noted that as a young U.S. attorney, Schiff prosecuted a Russian espionage case and learned a great deal about Russian intelligence operations.

Trump was further angered last year, when the Republican-led House censured Schiff in a party line vote. Democrats, though, enthusiastically rallied around the congressman.

That made Schiff “even more of a hero among Democrats, which enraged Trump even more,” Pitney said.

Schiff called the censure a “badge of honor.”

Trump vs. Schiff

Trump’s Saturday attack is the latest in a string of insults. Here’s a partial timeline:

▪ November 2018. Long before any impeachment inquiry had begun, Trump tweets about “little Adam Schiff.”

▪ March 2019. At a rally in Michigan, Trump talks about “little pencil-neck Adam Schiff.” And then House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, compared Schiff to communist hunter Joe McCarthy.

▪ March 2019. Trump urges supporters to buy a $28 T-shirt featuring Schiff’s face with a pencil for a neck and a flashing clown nose. “Everyone should buy a Pencil-Neck Adam Schiff shirt today!” Trump tweets.

▪ September 2019. The House begins its formal impeachment inquiry. Schiff chairs the House Intelligence Committee, one of the panels leading the probe. He blasts Trump, and Trump fires back. “His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber. He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the President of the United States. I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason,” Trump tweets.

▪ January 2020. The House in December approves two articles of impeachment against Trump. The next month, Trump talks about “crooked Adam Schiff…he’s so crooked. … you little pencil neck…he gets the smallest shirt collar you can get and it’s loose.”

▪ February 2020. Schiff is the lead prosecutor in the Senate impeachment trial. Trump is acquitted, as the Senate falls well short on a largely party-line vote of the 67 needed for conviction.

▪ February 2024. With the California U.S. Senate primary three weeks away, Trump talked on the Truth Social website “Slimeball Adam ‘Shifty Schiff, one of the true lowlifes in the history of politics in America.” Schiff, Trump says, has been fighting for “a state for which has done nothing but escalate violent crime, destroy (sic) by allowing millions of illegal immigrants.”

Schiff reposts the comments and says, “Clearly the mark of a very stable genius.”

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