Eric Schmitt, a Republican senator from Missouri, suffered a significant setback during his questioning of Special Counsel Jack Smith before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Schmitt attempted to discredit Smith by alleging that he had attended an Atlanta Hawks game and possibly met with Fulton County Prosecutor Fani Willis around the time of a scandal involving her. However, Smith denied attending the game and stated he was actually in Maryland watching a women's basketball game. This incident damaged Schmitt’s reputation as he appeared uninformed and disrespectful during his questioning, causing Republicans to perceive him negatively following his ambitious branding efforts as a staunch Trump ally.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-09-30,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
For Republicans trying to outrun a blue wave, the verdict is in: The Dallas midterm convention was a stinker.
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convention → try → wave
“To be honest with you, the numbers—when we did that convention—it dropped our numbers,” Paxton said in leaked audio reported today by the New York Times.
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Paxton → do → Times
“Everybody’s numbers dropped.
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numbers → drop → ?
Paxton, who made the remark at a private fundraiser, was answering the question: “Do you feel like he’s a little bit of a drag?”
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he → make → drag
Who might “he” be, one wonders.
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one → wonder → ?
It had all been going so well.
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It → go → ?
The junior senator from Missouri had been working hard building a MAGA-pleasing brand as a staunch Trump ally who wasn’t afraid to play footsie with the blood-and-soil right.
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who → work → right
Just yesterday, Axios reported that Schmitt was “seen as a top prospect to become a potential 2028 running mate” for JD Vance.
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Schmitt → report → Vance
Then, just hours later, his big break seemed to have arrived—the moment that he thought he was about to launch his MAGA brand into the stratosphere.
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he → seem → stratosphere
And then it all fell apart.
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it → fall → ?
The Senate Judiciary Committee had hauled former Special Counsel Jack Smith in for questioning.
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Committee → haul → questioning
Republicans’ goal going in was clear: to harass and belittle a man in the top tier of Donald Trump’s enemies list, and to catch him in a perjury trap if they could.
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they → go → trap
When Schmitt’s time came to question Smith, he embarked on a bizarre line of questioning intended to link Smith with another Trump enemy: Fulton County Prosecutor Fani Willis.
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he → come → enemy
Hadn’t he traveled to Atlanta in February 2024, just as a scandal was engulfing Willis’s parallel election-fraud prosecution of Trump?
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scandal → travel → Trump
Hadn’t he attended an Atlanta Hawks game that very same week?
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he → attend → game
Was it possible he had gone there to meet with Willis, no doubt for some nefarious purpose?
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he → go → purpose
But Smith did something Schmitt hadn’t expected.
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Schmitt → do → something
He denied having attended the Hawks game in question at all.
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He → deny → question
The senator couldn’t believe it.
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senator → believe → it
He and his colleagues had hoped to catch Smith in some lie that could be used as a pretext to prosecute him.
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that → hop → him
And now, he thought, he’d been the one to catch him.
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he → think → him
Schmitt could barely conceal his smug glee as he proceeded: “What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a Warriors–Hawks game on February 3, 2024?” he asked, a grin tugging at his mouth.
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grin → conceal → mouth
“I don’t think you know that we have this stuff, so I’ll give you a second to process it so you don’t perjure yourself.
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you → think → yourself
I think you’ve already perjured yourself.”
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you → think → yourself
A few minutes later, he wrapped up his testimony by calling Smith a “dirtbag.”
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he → wrap → Smith
He’d been in Maryland, watching the Terps women’s basketball team take on the visiting Iowa Hawkeyes.
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team → watch → Hawkeyes
Minutes later, a visibly furious Schmitt was blustering wildly as Sen. Amy Klobuchar icily rubbed his nose in it: “I think people should get their facts straight before they accuse someone of being a dirtbag, and not get the teams wrong.
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teams → bluster → someone
You had the teams wrong, sir.”
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teams → have → ?
Amazingly, Schmitt refused to apologize, insisting he’d just been asking questions.
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he → refuse → questions
I’ll be honest: It was all highly enjoyable to watch.
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It → watch → ?
(If you want to watch us having fun watching it, Sam and I did a video breakdown after the fact yesterday.)
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Sam → want → fact
JVL likes to say it’s great to watch bad things happen to bad people.
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things → like → people
Sometimes I see what he means.
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he → see → what
But to understand just how bad of shape we’re in as a country, consider this: It’s not clear that this humiliation will hurt Schmitt’s aspirations to higher office in the slightest.
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humiliation → understand → slightest
On one side of our great informational divide, Schmitt’s blunder is already going down in infamy.
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blunder → go → infamy
It was extraordinarily viral all day yesterday, with many Hill reporters at a loss to remember the last time a lawmaker had whiffed so hard during testimony.
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lawmaker → remember → testimony
For most of professional Washington and for most people with a mainstream-to-liberal information diet, it will likely be their first association when they think of Schmitt for years to come.
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they → think → years
Over the divide, however, things look very different.
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things → look → divide
Schmitt’s apparent “gotcha” moment buzzed quickly around right-wing media.
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moment → buzz → media
Podcaster Benny Johnson tweeted that Schmitt1 had “pulled out the receipts” and “CAUGHT Jack Smith perjuring himself.”
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Schmitt1 → tweet → himself
…and 93 more, not listed.
The Aporia
