Adam Schiff on AI regulation, free speech, and impeaching Trump one more time

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Nilay Patel (1:26)

Hello, and welcome to Decoder. I'm Nilay Patel, Editor-in-Chief of The Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. Today, I'm talking to Senator Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, who sits on a number of committees with oversight into tech and AI, intellectual property, antitrust, privacy, and technology. It's all there, and I really wanted to ask how we might regulate anything related to the tech industry at this moment in time. But as you'll hear, Senator Schiff started our conversation by talking about self-dealing in corruption, all through our politics. That of course was against the backdrop of President Trump gathering the nation's AI CEOs to the White House to sign a non-binding pact in which they agree to, you know, do a good job keeping AI safe. I asked Senator Schiff if he thinks that's enough, what a more formal regulatory framework would look like, and what might happen if Democrats retake Congress in the midterms, all the way to whether he'd support impeaching the president again over all that corruption. We also spent time comparing and contrasting how you might regulate AI with where we've landed regulating social media. One nerdy note before we begin. You're going to hear me ask Senator Schiff about something called Chevron deference and a Supreme Court case called Loper-Brite. Basically, in 2024, the Supreme Court overturned a Reagan era precedent saying courts would defer to experts in agencies when the law was vague. Now, the courts get to decide which would cause any new regulation to get tied up in litigation.

It seems awfully relevant to the idea of creating a new agency to regulate AI, which Senator Schiff supports. All right, we're going to get started, but do me a favor and subscribe to Decoder on YouTube where we put out new episodes every Monday and Thursday. Okay, California Senator Adam Schiff. Here we go.

Senator Adam Schiff, you're a United States Senator from California. Welcome to Decoder.

Adam Schiff (3:12)

Thank you. Great to be with you.

Nilay Patel (3:14)

I have been asking every politician who comes on the show this very basic question here in 2026 Senator, what the hell is going on in our country?

Adam Schiff (3:22)

It's a very good question. I think we have seen things take place in the last couple of years in particular that we've never seen before. There's sadly rampant corruption within the administration.

Every day, every week, it's a new thing. At the moment, I think what is most jarring is seeing campaign ads aired of the president that are paid for by taxpayer dollars. But every week, it's something else. It's excluding press from the White House or Air Force One or some new money-making scheme or some new vanity project.

If you look at, for example, the Triumphal Arch, they're now claiming it's a national security issue because they want to store ammunition in it. And why do they want to do that? Because the best legal argument they have is that this is not just cosmetic, that they have some national security purpose. So what are we seeing in the country? We're seeing chaos and no focus on the cost of living and improving the quality of people's lives at the administration level or by my Republican colleagues in Congress, but I'm hoping that changes.

Nilay Patel (4:26)

The national security piece is very interesting to me in the context of a bunch of questions I have for you because the Trump administration loves to justify every single thing it does by saying it's national security and it can't be questioned and this should bring more authority to the executive branch in one way or another. And they've been doing that since the beginning.