WASHINGTON — Watermelon head. Sleazebag. Scam artist. Belongs in prison. Enemy from within.

President Donald Trump has used all those insults and more to describe the man he calls Adam “Shifty” Schiff over the past year.

Schiff is now a U.S. senator, and his term will outlast Trump’s since it ends in January 2031, two years after the president leaves office.

Does that mean Schiff can ultimately be a crucial player in Democratic efforts to limit or overturn Trump policies, as he sought to be as a U.S. congressman during Trump’s first administration? There’s no easy answer.

The California Democrat, 65, was elected to the Senate last year. Though Senate freshmen typically spend months being largely unseen and unheard in public, Schiff was a rising star — or easy target — from the start.

He was a House member from the Los Angeles area from 2001, most known for leading the 2019 Trump impeachment and then being censured by the Republican-led House three years later.

The GOP accused Schiff of “spreading false accusations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia” during the 2016 presidential campaign. Schiff called the allegations “nonsense.”

Schiff, in a wide ranging interview with The Bee reflecting on his first months as a senator, talked about Trump in pointed, yet measured terms.

“I’ve had to acclimate to all the threats that come along with standing up to Donald Trump ever since his first term,” he said without a hint of emotion. “So I’ve gotten used to it.”

The relentless Trump drumbeat, though, adds a different hue to the key question about Schiff’s role in the Senate: Can he be effective? Or is he someone too politically toxic for lawmakers to cooperate with, to make the sorts of deals that are the lifeblood of Senate work?

Schiff says he works well with his colleagues from both parties, and there are many instances of that being the case.

But “Republicans think Schiff was one of the key players investigating Trump and being unfair to Trump,” said John Fortier, senior fellow at the center-right American Enterprise Institute.

As a result, working publicly with Schiff is “something most Republican senators are going to be leery of at first.”

‘Shifty should pay the price of prison’

A week before The Bee’s interview on July 24, Trump accused Schiff of mortgage fraud involving the senator’s homes in Maryland and California.

“Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff is in BIG TROUBLE!” Trump posted on his Truth Social website. “He falsified Loan Documents.”

As a result, Trump said, “Now Shifty should pay the price of prison for a real crime!”

This is what Schiff has to deal with that the usual rookie senator does not.

Two days later, Trump said Fannie Mae’s Financial Crimes Division has “concluded that Adam Schiff has engaged in a sustained pattern of possible Mortgage Fraud.” The agency did not respond to requests for comment.

Trump’s blasts at Schiff are nothing new. And he has a calm, stern response about how insults from the most powerful person in the world affect him.

“I have a real sense of mission,” he said.

Schiff methodically explained the housing situation in his interview with The Bee. He bought a house in Potomac, Md., a posh Washington, D.C. suburb, shortly after his election to the House of Representatives.

He refinanced it several times. He also bought a condominium in Burbank, in the district he represented. He claimed both as primary residences. He consulted with House and mortgage company attorneys, who said the arrangements were fine.

“Because both our home in California and our home in Maryland are occupied year round, neither is a vacation home. Neither is an investment property. And we were informed that both could be listed as principal or primary residences,” he said.

“The president’s claims of misrepresentation are patently false.”

Schiff visits the farms

Schiff is 87th in seniority among the 100 members in a chamber where seniority is political currency.

But he came to the Senate not only well-known and familiar with how Congress works, but representing a state with about 12% of the country’s population — so his input into strategy and legislation quickly became important.

“He has his own brand, is on TV a great deal, has lots of national supporters and contributors. He can help fundraise for other Democrats and increase his stature among other Senate Democrats,” said Wesley Hussey, professor of political science at California State University, Sacramento.

Schiff says, despite his ranking in the Senate and the near-constant badgering from the president, that his first months have been productive.

He points to the GENIUS Act, aimed at protecting consumers in the digital market. Schiff negotiated language to make sure the president, vice president, members of Congress and senior executive branch employees and officials must disclose holdings in payment stablecoins in financial disclosure reports.

He’s also become increasingly involved in learning about the state’s agriculture. Schiff joined the agriculture committee, the first California senator to do so in more than 30 years. It’s a new world for him.

“In my former House district, the only agriculture we had was of the illegal variety,” he said, “and I have a lot to learn.”

Schiff was quick to connect with major players in the agriculture world. He wrote an op-ed that appeared in The Bakersfield Californian two days after he took office, where he expressed his desire to work with farmers.

Dave Puglia, president and CEO of Irvine-based Western Growers, which advocates for local and regional family farmers, was wary of Schiff at first. “I’m initially wary of any elected politician with no record on agriculture issues,” he said. “But I always give them the benefit of the doubt.”

He told The Bee in July that “by every account (Schiff) has been genuinely inquisitive as to the challenges confronting agriculture in California and the ways he might be able to help us become more economically sustainable.”

Puglia found that seeking a seat on the agriculture committee “was a welcome sign that Sen. Schiff wants to put his shoulder to the wheel.”

He also saw bipartisan support. “Growers have opened their farms to Sen. Schiff regardless of their party affiliation and I think that’s testament to the wisdom of farmers, who are among the most pragmatic and adaptable businesspeople in the country,” Puglia said.

In May, Schiff and other members of Congress were able to put pressure on the federal Department of Agriculture to reverse their decision to close nine California regional offices. After reconsidering, only one remote office was shuttered.

That same month, Schiff began a series of visits to different agricultural areas, starting with the Fresno area. Earlier this month, Schiff had a two day swing through Salinas, Soledad, Firebaugh, and Merced County. He heard concerns about the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, and how fears of being detained were causing workers to stay away from their jobs.

Will that translate into effective action? Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., knew Schiff when they were both House members.

“He’s been a good member of the committee. He’s very good about coming. He asks appropriate questions,” Boozman said.

Sen. John Hoeven, R-North Dakota, was more circumspect.

“It doesn’t help at all,” he said of the Schiff-Trump war. “The fact that obviously he and Trump don’t get along and obviously we agree with President Trump,” Hoeven said.

“But as far as ag,” he said, “I haven’t seen enough there to give you input yet.”

Schiff: Hero or villain?

Schiff has the potential to be a pivotal, influential senator.

“Schiff carved out a role as a Democratic attack dog as Trump impeachment manager when he served in the House, drawing ire of Republicans,” said Christian Grose, academic director of the Schwarzenegger Institute at the University of Southern California.

“While he is still continuing that role of Democratic attack dog, he is also deploying his style he crafted in the U.S. House over many years of building relationships and taking time to grow into the role as senator,” Grose said.

Schiff became a hero or villain, depending on one’s point of view, during the first Trump administration, when he was top Democrat and at one point chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

He was the lead prosecutor in the successful 2019 Trump impeachment on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, stemming from the president’s effort to get Ukraine to investigate President Joe Biden. The Senate acquitted Trump and he remained in office.

In 2023, Democrats rallied around Schiff when House Republicans voted to censure him.

“For years, Representative Schiff has spread false accusations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia,” and “behaved dishonestly and dishonorably on many other occasions,” the censure resolution said. It was passed on a party line vote in the Republican-controlled House.

During the interview with The Bee, Schiff was read a statement he made in 2017 to CNN and about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

The statement: “We do know this: The Russians offered help. The campaign accepted help. The Russians gave help and the president made full use of that help. That is pretty damning, whether it is proof beyond a reasonable doubt or not.”

He was asked if he stood by it.

“Absolutely,” he said.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee in 2019 his investigation of the controversy “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

“We did not address collusion, which is not a legal term,” Mueller said. “Rather we focused on whether the evidence was sufficient to charge any member of the campaign with taking part in a criminal conspiracy, and there was not.”

Republicans remain wary of Schiff.

“Senator Schiff should be sending a weekly thank you note to the White House,” said California Republican consultant Matt Rexroad. “As California deals with homelessness, affordability, and horrific natural disasters the only thing most people know about Schiff is that he does not agree with President Trump.”

The battle ahead

One way to gauge Schiff’s effectiveness in the weeks ahead will involve the issue likely to most engage the Senate: federal spending policy.

The 2026 fiscal year starts October 1. Congress is supposed to pass a series of funding bills by then, but that’s highly unlikely. Congress is not scheduled to meet in August, has not passed any of its spending bills yet, and there are sharp partisan disagreements about the legislation.

That means there will be a clamor for a “continuing resolution,” or a temporary government funding measure.

When similar legislation came up in March, Democrats bitterly split over what to do. Senate Democratic leaders urged joining Republicans to fund the government for the remaining six months of the fiscal year.

Almost all Democrats, including Schiff, voted no. The Trump administration then proceeded with severe cuts to the budget, including $9 billion in reductions that ended federal funding to public broadcasting.

“What has happened since was terrible verification of the fears I had in March,” Schiff said.

If that budget had not passed — or if Congress doesn’t pass funding legislation by October 1 — much of the government shuts down. Historically, the minority party gets the political blame.

Not this time, said Schiff, who is not advocating a shutdown, not with Republicans controlling the government’s legislative and executive branches.

“The reality is they’ve been shutting down the government since they got here, shutting it down one piece at a time,” he said. “I think the country would understand that they have a responsibility to govern and they’re not using it.”

There’s a crisis here, Schiff said. He’s surprised by how quickly the Trump administration is acting to reshape the government, to engage in what he called “broad, indiscriminate immigration enforcement.”

He talked about the fear he said the administration has generated.

“They’ve made universities afraid, they’ve made companies afraid. They’ve made lawmakers afraid. They’ve made ordinary citizens and immigrants afraid,” he said.

So what can Adam Schiff do about it? Build coalitions? Stand up to too much compromise? Stay tuned this fall.

“There is an old political science text that described U.S. senators as workhorses or showhorses,” said USC’s Grose.

“It remains to be seen if Schiff will be a workhorse senator, a showhorse senator, or try to do both in the future.”

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