Actor Richard Schiff is best known for playing presidential adviser Toby Ziegler on the TV drama The West Wing. His Twitter feed these days looks like any hard-core Democrat’s – happily retweeting Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and Sen. Kamala Harris.
An article by Judy Kurtz in The Hill underlines that like most Democrats, Schiff thinks Trump needs to be removed from office like a “cancer” destroying "the body of your country," not treated like an elected president who gets to try and enact policies:
Richard Schiff says his famed West Wing character would advise President Trump to resign, knowing “there’s no compromising with a dictator who wants total and complete power.”
“You’re dealing with a cage-match wrestler, and the rest of us are in a boxing match where there are rules,” Schiff told ITK on Tuesday.
Schiff now starts in ABC’s The Good Doctor, a Monday night drama where his neurosurgeon character mentors the lead character, an autistic/savant surgical intern.
When asked how fictional Toby Ziegler might have guided Trump after Robert Mueller’s indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, Schiff replied, “I don’t see how that could’ve ever happened. If there was someone as smart as Toby in the White House — which I don’t know if there is — if [Toby] had somehow infiltrated that enemy force, if you will, he would sabotage it in any way he could by convincing Trump to resign.”
“I think that’s a mistake that many in Congress have made — there’s no discussion to be had,” the Emmy Award winner continued. “This pretense that we’re moving forward with tax reform and health-care reform, and so on, with someone who’s trying to destroy the very system that you’re working in, makes no sense.”
Schiff’s favorite analogies for Trump are a cancer and an eight-year-old brat, much like the rest of the bi-coastal liberal elite:
“All of your work should be in removing this cancer from the body of your country,” Schiff advised lawmakers. “Get him out.”
“I always think of the analogy of how long does it take to build a beautiful sand castle on the beach, and how long does it take for an 8-year-old to step all over it and destroy it?” exclaimed Schiff. “Well, he’s the 8-year-old.”
It might seem to Trump voters like refusing to work with a president who was certifiably elected because you don’t like the election results looks childish. Schiff can’t understand that maybe Trump voters don’t see Washington as a beautiful sandcastle. They see it as a corrupt system that needs to be shocked and transformed.
