House impeachment manager Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) gave an over two hour opening statement at the beginning of day two of the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
Towards the completion of Schiff's speech, the California congressman invoked the words of late president Ronald Reagan, along with saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin and the "Russian autocracy" will be the ones to benefit should Trump get through the impeachment proceedings unscathed. Schiff implied that the U.S. will become like Russia because of the "defeat of democracy."
It was more melodramatic than a telenovela. You can check it out in the video above.
For a transcript of Schiff's comments, read below:
We have, for generations, been the shining city upon a hill that President Reagan described. America’s not just a country, but also an idea. But what worth is that idea when tried we do not affirm the values that underpin it? What will those nascent democracies conclude? That democracy is not only difficult, but maybe that it’s too difficult? Maybe that it’s impossible? And who will come to fill the void that we leave when the light from that shining city upon a hill is extinguished? The autocrats with whom we compete. Who value not freedom and fair elections, but the unending rule of a repressive executive. Autocrats that value, not freedom of the press and open debate, but disinformation, propaganda and state sanctioned lies. Vladimir Putin would like nothing better.
The Russians have little democracy left, thanks to Vladimir Putin. It’s an autocracy. It’s a thugocracy. The Russian storyline, the Russian narrative, the Russian propaganda, the Russian view they would people around the world to believe is that every country is just the same — just the same corrupt system. There’s no difference. It’s not a competition between autocracy and democracy. No, it’s just between autocrats and hypocrites. They make no bones about their loss of democracy. They just want the rest of the world to believe you can’t find it anywhere. Why take to the streets in Moscow to demand something better if there’s nothing better anywhere else? That’s the Russian story. That’s the Russian story. That’s who prospers by the defeat of democracy. That’s who wins by the defeat of our democratic ideals. It’s not other democracies. It’s the autocrats who are on the rise all over the world.
I think all of us in this room have grown up in a generation where each successive generation lived with more freedom than the one that came before. We each had more freedom of speech and association, freedom to practice our faith. This was true at home. This was true all over the world. And I think we came to believe this was some immutable law of nature, only to find it isn’t. Only to come to the terrible realization that this year fewer people have freedom than last, and there’s no guarantee that people will live with more freedom than today. And the prospect for our children is even more in doubt.