‘That’s Dictator Talk’: Adam Schiff Defiant When Asked By NBC’s Kristen Welker About Prospect of Trump Retribution

Senator-elect Adam Schiff (D-CA) accused President-elect Donald Trump of speaking like a “dictator” during a Sunday interview with NBC News when asked if he feels Trump will seek retribution against him.

On Meet the Press, anchor Kristen Welker spoke to Trump’s longtime Democratic House opponent about the incoming president’s campaign trail language, likening his political adversaries to enemies within.

Welker aired a clip of Trump addressing Schiff in particular in which he said:

The enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia and all these countries, because if you have a smart president, he can handle them pretty easily. I handled – I got along great with all – I handled them? But the thing that’s tougher to handle these lunatics that we have inside like Adam Schiff, Adam shifty Schiff.

Welker asked Schiff, “Senator-elect, when you hear that language, how concerned are you that you will be targeted by President-elect Trump and his second administration?” Schiff replied:

Well, that’s – that’s dictator talk. That’s how autocrats talk. They want to make their political opposition an enemy, describe them in those terms. But look, I’m not concerned about myself. I’m going to do my job. I’m not going to have his threats intimidate me from doing so. But anytime you have someone, particularly someone who’s going to become president of the United States, fawning over dictators, emulating their language, attacking the press, undermining our institutions.

Yeah, we should be concerned about it, because at the end of the day, it means that the American people will suffer. The American people, I think, voted on the basis of the economy. They want to change the economy. They weren’t voting for dictatorship. So, I think he is going to misread his mandate if that’s what he thinks voters chose him for.

Watch above via NBC News.