August 31, 2025 • 36 mins
Newt talks with Senator Eric Schmitt, a sixth-generation Missourian and current U.S. Senator, about his new book, ""The Last Line of Defense: How to Beat the Left in Court.” They discuss Schmitt's legal battles against the Biden administration's policies. As Missouri's Attorney General, Schmitt led significant court cases against mask mandates, student debt forgiveness, Second Amendment restrictions, and more. Their discussion highlights Schmitt's recent announcement of a historic FBI investment to combat violent crime in St. Louis, emphasizing the need for a strong law enforcement presence. Schmitt shares his personal journey into politics, inspired by his son's medical challenges, and his commitment to defending the rule of law. Their conversation also touches on Schmitt's early endorsement of Donald Trump for the presidency, reflecting his belief in Trump's leadership and impact on American politics.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
On this episode of Newts World. When the Biden administration
took office in January twenty twenty one, Eric Schmidt had
been Attorney General for the state of Missouri for two
years and had been focused on tackling violent crime. As
soon as he began to see the outrageous excesses of
the Biden administration, he and his team snapped into action,
(00:24):
waging war on the Biden regime's stunning attempts at government overreach,
winning some of the most important fights in modern American
history and helping set the stage for a return to
common sense in government now. In his new book, The
Last Line of Defense, Senator Schmidt takes us behind the
scenes of those battles for the first time and describes
(00:48):
how consertis can keep winning in court and beyond. Some
of his biggest court battles were against masked mandates, student
debt forgiveness, restrictions on Second Amendment rights, woke idealla in
our schools, open borders, attacks on free speech, and the
weaponization of government agencies. I am really pleased to welcome
(01:09):
my guest, Senator Eric Schmidt. He is a sixth generation
Missourian currently represents the people of Missouri and the United
States Senate, and he previously served as his state's attorney general. Eric.
(01:32):
Welcome and thank you for joining me on Newts World.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Dude, it is great deed back with you. I was
on four years ago when we sued China, and a
lot has happened in those four years, so it's great
to with you.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
It's hard to believe how much has gone on in
the last four years.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Isn't it. Yes, the world's turned over A few times.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Before we start discussing your book, I understand you just
recently announced a historic FBI investment to combat violent crime,
and say, Lewis, tell us about how that partnership came together.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah. So this administration from the get go was very
open about their desire to help crime plague cities deal
with those challenges. And so during the confirmation process and
talking to Pambondi and talking to Cash Betel specifically, we
kind of hatched this plan as Cash was saying, hey, look,
I want to get FBI agents out of Washington into
(02:25):
the field, and I said, well, I've got just the
place for you. And so we've been working on this
for a while and it represents the largest infusion per
capital of any place in the country of permanent FBI
agents to take on violent crime. So these are not
going to be vapor pushers. These are people that are
specifically dedicated to taking on the worst of the worst
because what we're seeing happen in Washington, d C in
(02:48):
a different context. Of course, a little bit because of
Washington d C versus Saint Louis in the state is
that there's just no substitute news for a law enforcement presence.
There just isn't and prosecutions that follow, and so that's
what we want to see and their willingness to do it.
I think this will end up being a model for
other places. So you'll have the permanent presence of more
FBI agents to take on by the crime. And then
(03:09):
also we'll be working towards multilateral efforts with other agencies
like the DEA, atf ICE, others to kind of surge
in Saint Louis and other places to get the worst
of the worst off the streets.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
What do you expect in terms of the actual number
of agents.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Or can I keep in that number a little bit
on the down low? I guess, so to speak, But
it's not a small number. And what we really want
is again because we talked about it. I mean, you've
seen FBI agents go to particular places. Maybe it's an
anti terrorism kind of thing, and all those things are important,
But when you're dealing with cities like Chicago or Saint
Louis or any major metro area right now, or the
(03:47):
urban core, what they really need are people who are
willing to go in and arrest the bad guys and
chase them and find them and go get them and
put them in jail.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Why do you think the local police just literally can't
cope with Well.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
There's a lot of reasons. These guys are heroes, you know, newt.
But something happened on the way to where we're at now,
which is during that whole defund the police movement. Ironically,
that kind of began in Ferguson ten years ago in
the Saint Louis area when you saw that nonsense happen,
and that was really the beginning of the Black Lives
Matter movement, which is this neo Marxist group that's really
been exposed. But then, of course in the summer of
(04:23):
twenty twenty, with those riots, really you saw a lot
of law enforcement professionals early retirement. Somebody asked me when
I was Attorney General what keeps you up at night?
And there were a few things, but one of the
things was what prominent was that just all the people
that will never go into law enforcement right because of
the disrespect they were shown. So their budgets were slashed,
they were being spit on. Morale was really low. We're
(04:46):
starting to see an uptick I think in that now,
which is good. So the numbers have been depleted. They
were not able to do their jobs new in places
like seeing Wes we don't have anymore. But Kim Garden
was a Soros funded prosecutor. There was much more likely
to go after cops in many instances than criminals. We
had the McCloskey incident where she went after people defending
their homes as opposed to the rioters. So you had
(05:07):
this environment where they were out doing their jobs in
some of the roughest neighborhoods, but then the prosecutor wouldn't
actually charge on the crime. Now, one of the things
I did was as AG we partnered with the US
Attorney's Office to get around that to some degree, to
go after carjackings and an awful possession of firearms in
a federal court system. But now that she's gone, it
sort of opens up, I think, more opportunities. So these
(05:28):
partnerships with the federal agents and locals be working side
by side is really what this is about. So it's
increased capacity while they grow their numbers locally. But you
got to have some leadership as far as them being
deployed and letting them do their jobs. And I think
that's the lesson.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Well, it is amazing. Whether it's Saint Louis or New Orleans,
or Baltimore, or Chicago or Washington, d C. The degree
of decay in terms of violent crime in the last
ten or twelve years has been really startling and totally
different than it was a general.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
It is and one thing that's worth noting, I think
too is one of the things I think that's really
incredible about trump forty seven presidency right now is all
of these assumptions that people made about intractable problems that
couldn't be solved in many ways are being solved. Think
of the border. Joe Biden sort of threw his hands
up and Congress was debating this idea of adding more laws,
(06:22):
which was a Democrat trojan horse that I objected to.
I just said he needed a new president. And that's
what we got, a new president. Now we have all
time low border crossings or meeting mass migration with mass deportations,
which is a good thing. And then you look and
see what's happening in Washington, d C. I mean, carjackings
over two week period are down eighty five percent. Robberies
are down fifty percent. So we shouldn't just accept that
(06:43):
these problems are too big to solve. We just need
the willingness and the political will to go do it.
And I think President Trump's leading the way on that.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
I was surprised, given that I'd always known you when
you were Attorney general. I didn't realize that you didn't
grow up around lawyers. What drew you to the law and.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
The Yeah, I grew up in a working class neighborhood.
My dad worked seven days a week in the midnight shift.
My grandfather operated a forklift. My other grandfather was a butcher.
For me, I saw law as giving structure for people
to pursue their dreams, whatever that was, and it kind
of coincided. Then my entry into politics was with my
son having some medical challenges spurred me to action. But
(07:21):
I also when I was growing up, I watched Crossfire
with my dad at night we went to my ball
games where we watched Crossfire, watch Jack Camp, I watched
Pap Buchanan. I was in college during the nineteen ninety
four revolution that you led. I mean, those were formative
things for me. Running for office wasn't necessarily something I
was really considering. I was practicing law, and I was
attracted to the structure of it and what it meant
(07:42):
for our republic and the fact that in courtrooms the
facts are supposed to matter. I was attracted to it.
So I went to the first person to go to
college out of high school and my family, and the
certainly first person to go to law school. So to
then serve as the Attorney General was just a big
honor for me. It was just kind of unimaginable where
I grew up that somebody like me would be in that.
So I just tried to make the most of it.
And the rule of law I think is just central
(08:03):
to this American experiment.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
I think you cannot have freedom without the rule of law.
It's not possible. And I think it's something that we
don't drive home often enough. In the end, each of
us individually is protected by the Constitution and the laws
that grow out of it, And in fact, it is
precisely the weak who are the most in danger if
(08:27):
the rule of law breaks down, which is why I've
always been astonished that liberals who claim to be for
the poor don't understand that it is precisely the poor
who most need the rule of law, because there the
ones most likely to be exploited in a lawless environment.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
That was my family's experience in the sense that I
didn't know any lawyers growing up. There was nobody to
call that could help. I viewed it as a way
of being able to fight for the little guy in
many ways, and it's one of the things that attracted me.
But also, as you point out, the rule of law
is so important. It's why when I Attorney General and
Biden came in, what was so astonishing about what was
(09:05):
happening and why I wrote the book Last Line of Defense,
How to Beat the Left and court people can get on.
Amazon just got hit with the designation of New York
Times Bestseller, which is you know, nude for a conservative
is a big deal. But I think The point of
it is I saw what was like. It's kind of
a field manual of what it was like to be
on the front lines against this left wing lawfair machine
(09:26):
that came at as from so many different angles. It
was the election of twenty twenty. We beat Mark Elias
three times in Missouri. He was successful in other states
to weaken their election laws. It was the COVID restrictions
that seemingly went on forever and ever. We sued fifty
school districts to get in the back off mass mandates.
We took on the student loan debt forgiveness scan that
would have stuck taxpayers with a half a trillion dollars.
(09:47):
We took that to the Supreme Court. We won. We
took the vaccine mandate cases all the way to Supreme
Court and we won. And perhaps most famously, with fouled
the Missouri versus Biden lawsuit, which before Eline Musk bought
Twitter before congressional hearings, really exposed this censorship enterprise that
the Biden administration was working with big tech companies when
that was just called the conspiracy theory. So we took
on DEI, we took on CRT, We took on the
(10:09):
net zero banking alliance, all that in a couple of years.
I'm really proud of that work, and I think the
book gives the reader your audience. It's not written for lawyers.
I hope lawyers read it, but it's really what was
it like to see all this happening? And what was
it like to take Anthony Fauci's deposition in that Missouri
versus Biden case. What was it like to take Elvis
Chan's deposition the FBI agent who was pre bunking the
(10:29):
Hunter Biden laptop story on the way to twenty twenty.
All that's in the book, and more importantly than just
war stories, it is a playbook of what we need
to do when we see this stuff happening sometime soon,
hopefully farther away, but it'll happen again.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
I think part of your natural aggressiveness came out of
your background in sports. You were very active in playing
in sports.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
It's right, I had not written a book before. You know,
when you do, you reflect on what were the experiences
that forged you in this moment your willingness to stand
up and fight, And the title of the book is
Last Line of Defense. I realized I played a lot
of sports growing up, including in college. I realized that
in every sport that I played, in basketball, i'm six
six too, which has probably explained some of this. But
(11:34):
in basketball I played in the paint, in baseball, I
played in the outfield, and in football I played free safety,
which in every sport was like the last line of defense,
I mean, your last barrier. So I suppose I've always
kind of, whether by nature or nurture, embraced the role
of being a defender of the things that we hold dear.
(11:55):
And I love this country, our framework, I love our people.
I love America. What I saw happening from the Biden administration,
the left had taken over that White House. People who
were just probably a year earlier with a gender studies
degree from Harvard writing white papers about open borders, were
suddenly in charge of opening up our border. And he
saw corporations fall in line here too, you know, in
(12:16):
your home town of Atlanta and Coca Cola, they were
having struggle sessions where employees had to explain how they
were going to be less white. And then you had
five year olds being forced to wear masks all day long,
even though there was no science to support. It was
just a wild, crazy time defined by a pandemic and
social unrest. And I think the most aggressively liberal administration
(12:37):
we've seen in American history.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Oh, I think that's right. I think they basically were
Obama's third term, and they brought all of his most
radical appointees forward to be the Biden administration. It's a
big reason why Trump ended up winning, because the country
was increasingly turned off by how radical and how aggressive.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I start the book Last Line of Defense, How to
Beat the Left and court people and get Now. In
November of twenty twenty four, the fever broke. I really
believe it really kind of looked back on the fever
dream that we were living through, and you know, it
was a time of these lockdowns and mandates and censorship,
not somewhere else but in our country. And I've said before,
(13:20):
I don't think power necessarily corrupts, but I do think
power reveals, and I think COVID in particular was a
test run. It revealed the true nature of the left
and what they would do if they could actually consolidate
power and weaponize it in ways we've not seen before.
Take that, apart from even the lawfare against President Trump
that they were willing to employ because they labeled him
(13:41):
a quote unquote threat to democracy when they were bulldozing
democracy and the republic along the way. It's just very revealing,
and I think you're right. The American people sat in
their own jury box and they saw all this stuff happening,
and they rendered their verdict. Thank god.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Biden was so bad and the Democrats he represents were
so bad that he actually created an environment for Trump
to be even bolder and, if you will, more radical
in his reforms than he was in the first term,
because now he's operating against the backdrop of things that
are horrible. This is not the America they wanted.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I agree, And I also think and I told President Trump,
I play well enough to get invited back to play
golf with President Trump. I only disposed private conversations with him,
but I did tell him one time that you know,
it's almost the non consecutive term for him is in
some ways, I think it's divinely inspired, because not only
did you see the excesses of the Biden term, but
(14:39):
he also was able to put together a team now
and a strategy. You know, would have been different if
it would have been the consecutive term. By the way,
his incentive structure is different now too. You know, he's
got this four year window here to do all of
the things that as conservatives we've thought about doing, but
not a lot of people have had the guts to
go do. I also think that's one of his great
(14:59):
leg sees to our party is he's inspired people to
be fearless and the left that's never been their problem.
They want to upend things and they don't apologize for it.
But just look at this redistricting battle that's going to
unfold across the country. That would have been unthinkable for
Republicans to engage in that. I hope we do because
the Democrats have done it. They've already done it well,
(15:21):
you just ought to play by the same rules. And again,
the reason why I wrote the book the last line
of defense was in the legal world. I think conservatives
seated the courts too easily in the past. We've got
to be willing to fight on all fronts, and that
means in the Article three branch in the courts too.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
I have to go back, just for a minute, to
your athletic background. If you were six six and you
were free safety, you must be very fast A.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Long time ago, Nick, though in fact I probably should
have been a tight end, but I couldn't put on
the weight when I was eighteen nineteen years old. That
came later, a little later in life. I had some
wheels back then, but that's a long time ago. And
the only time I get to do anything now nude
is in the Congressional baseball game.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yes, I'd never thought about it, but I guess if
you are a free safety who's six', six you also
just by putting your arms out cover a lot more
of the field than a smaller guy.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Does, well it was a bit of a ball, hawk
SO i had a lot of. Fun but, also you,
know growing up WHERE i grew up, Too i'm not
afraid of confrontation. EITHER i think that if you care
about the things that you believe, in as you, know
you've got to be in the, arena and when you do,
that you realize that when you get on the other
side of, it there's a lot of things that you
being proud. Of and what PEOPLE i think are dying
for more than anything right now is authentic leadership and
(16:32):
you just be. Yourself and for, Me i've always been
a fighter in that, way AND i do think it's
interesting now as The democrats will fall over themselves to
position themselves this sort of fake tough guy thing that
they're all trying to pull. Off it's just fake, authenticity
like they just discovered cuss. Words it's just so.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Ridiculous SO i thought that Tim wolves trying to use
a shotgun was probably as good an example are for that,
matter back in two thousand and, four Watching John carey
try to go goose hunting in an outfit that he
clearly had bought that.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Morning, hey you wonder why they have a problem with
young men right? Now that would explain some of. It
AND i also, think by the, way what they did
DURING covid the young people that is also as you
AND i both, Know i'm jen. X even though it's
gotten way more conservative as people get, older which is
typically the, trajectory the current eighteen to twenty four year
(17:24):
old population is more conservative than any generation before. Them
SO i think that bodes well for us too if
we can keep this coalition.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Together in terms of coalitions only go back from you
run for The Senate Missouri senate in two thousand and,
eight what led you to decide to get into elected.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
OFFICE i was in my early. THIRTIES i had just
made a partner and things were, great and we were
starting a, family and my, Son stephen was, born and
we found out just five months in that he was
born with a rare genetic. Condition in, fact we took
him to the hospital the dermatologists because he had the
sort of an angel wing birthmark on his, leg and
we thought so little of the doctor's. APPOINTMENT i joke
(18:00):
that my wife let me Take steven to the dermatologist that.
Day SO i take him and they put him under
a black, light and the dermatologist, said he probably has
something called tuberous. Sclerosis will run some more, tests AND
i was, like what is. That turns out it's a
genetic condition where tumors form in different, organs Including stephen's,
brain so it severely affected his. Development he just turned
twenty one last. Week he's, nonverbal he's on the autism,
(18:21):
spectrum but he is, epilepsy which is the most medically
challenging part of the, diagnosis so he's seizures almost every.
Day but when he was really, young we were just
getting accustomed to this. Diagnosis he would have seizures that
would last a long, time including a four hour Seizure.
Newt you, KNOW i was holding his hand on the hospital.
Bed they were trying these medications to try to get
it to. Stop nothing would. Work finally the last one.
(18:42):
Did we almost Lost. Stephen we were in THE icu
for over a week AND i went through this kind of,
discernment this reflection on what DO i want to do
with my? Life that was something as a first time,
father who was you, know in my early, Thirties it
kind of spurred me into want to do, more and
so for, me it was running for office to try
to make a. Difference that's HOW i decided to do,
it after a lot of, prayer And steven's always been
(19:03):
that inspiration to go do. It he still is and
to fight for. THINGS i think there's probably something to
that WHERE i know That stephen isn't going to have
those same. Opportunities he has no. WORDS i think it
propels me to make the most of. It so that's
WHY i ran for the State. Senate was able to
do some things there In, missouri autism insurance, reform tax,
cuts taking on government overreach that did, that and then
(19:23):
was in statewide, office as you, know his attorney. General
and then When Roy blunt announced he wasn't going to
seek another, term jumped into that race and was. Successful But,
stephen it was the catalytic event for all of, this
and still to a day kind of my.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Touchdown it must have been very frightening to see a
young child have those kind of.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Seizures, yeah And stephen still. Does we haven't had a
four hour one in a. While he still will. Have
grandma see hears you feel very powerless because there's nothing
you can really do about it except pray and be
there for. Him so very. Love but it's taught me a.
Lot it's taught me a lot about what's really, important
what really matters in this, life and that you, know
(20:03):
and strengthen my. FAITH i know that sometimes that sounds
strange to, people BUT i think That god has given
Us stephen to protect. HIM i talk about that in
the book a little bit, Too that protect or INSTINCT
i GUESS i had in, sports AND i remember specifically
WHEN i was in seventh grade there were some bullies
picking on a kid who had special, needs And, i'd
for whatever, Reason i'd whisperred to defend, him didn't really
(20:26):
know the kid that, well but felt like that was
unfair and eventually shamed these guys with my, words but
was prepared to go further than. That BUT i remember
going home and my dad was a great guy and
still living and just, said, yeah you don't ever let
anybody take advantage of somebody in that kind of. Position
and that stuck with me a. Little DID i know
That i'd be a father right of a son with
those kind of, issues with more profound issues than. That
(20:47):
SO i Think god Sent steven Our way for a
bunch of, reasons and he's taught me a, lot AND
i think anybody that's ever met him made him a better.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Person you've responded to the challenge and are remarkably caring
in compassionate, way WHICH i think is a wonderful model
for the rest of.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Us, well thank.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
You you go to the State, senate you survey eight.
(21:28):
Years what led you to run for attorney?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
General, well actually there was a stint Where missouri was
changing over. It as you know as a student of,
Politics missouri had been this ultimate Bell weather and was
a purple. STATE i, Mean Harry truman was From, missouri
right was run By democrats for a very long. Time
republicans would break through every once in a. While it
was always a very conservative, state But republicans really didn't break.
(21:50):
Through they did in the legislature in the early two,
thousands like a lot of, places but in statewide offices
not so. Much in twenty, sixteen for, example every statewide
office holder was A democrat except for. One and that
was the year that we kind of broke. Through Josh
hawley was actually attorney general before, me AND i was
elected treasurer and we kind of swept. Through hally then
(22:12):
goes to The. SENATE i was appointed then to fill
his remaining two years of his, term ran for attorney
general in one in twenty, twenty and then The senate
was in twenty twenty. Two SO i served as attorney
general for four, years But Josh holly was the immediate,
predecessor and Then Adrian bailey followed me. Up so we've
had a good run Of AG's And. Missouri you, KNOW
i Think missouri in particular knew you'll appreciate. THIS i
(22:35):
think people want to. Understand as somebody asked me one,
time is it a northern? State is it the southern?
State is in A midwestern, state is it A western?
State and my answer is, yes it's kind of all those.
Things that's a cultural. Crossroads but one thing that ties
all those regions together is it's always been very suspicious
of a federal government one thousand miles away telling us
how to run our. Lives and SO i think WHEN
(22:55):
i WAS ag and we saw that happening In, washington
WHICH i relay in the Book Last, line it was
our time to stand up and fight for not Just,
missourians but for the rest of the country on some big.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Wins you happen to be in a unique position because
you had two years With trump where you could focus on,
crime and then, boom you suddenly have this very aggressive
left wing radicalism of The biden. Demonstration in terms of
your own thinking and your own team's, operation how long
did it take you to shift gears and realize that
(23:25):
you were in a different.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
World, well we had Special Litigation unit sort of think
of it as a seal team that you have in
an AG's. OFFICE i wanted to have WHEN i came,
in even the first two. YEARS i wanted to have
the MODEL ag office in the. Country and we looked
and saw were the things that we could, do so
we wanted to push back against federal. Overreach at the state,
level we weren't. Deferring think About chevron. Deference we weren't.
Deferring even though we were defending. Agencies we never argued
(23:47):
to the court that they were the experts who wanted
the judges to rule on the law as it was,
written not how they wanted to be or what some
experts that it should. Be and at the local, level
we would go after local governments that exceeded their. Authority
think of mass, mandates think of those sorts of. Things
BUT i was. Fortunate we had a great. TEAM i
mean My Solicitor general and for your, audience that's the
person that typically will argue the cases that The Missouri
(24:08):
Supreme court or The United States Supreme court was a
guy in the named Of John, sower WHO i recommended To President.
Trump And John sowers now The Solicitor general of The
United states Of. America so we had a great. Team
John sower led that. GROUP i had a great chief of,
Staff Justin. Smith and what, Happened newt and you appreciate
this when you exhibit that kind of. Leadership we started
having people from all across the country apply to work
(24:31):
in our office because they saw the work that we were.
Doing and when you look at the, landscape the country's
divided into different judicial. Circuits missouri is the biggest state
in The Eighth, circuit which is typically pretty. Conservative appellate
court in The Eighth, circuit and then you kind of
had a mix in the district court. Level, now the
first four district court judges appointed By President trump or
In Saint, louis they all worked for me in The
(24:53):
Attorney general's. Office so you're starting to see then one
of the Things i'm most proud, of that courage was
contagious and it's playing itself out now in senior positions
at The department Of justice and courts and other places
THAT i think we can be really proud of. It
and again that's part of the playbook here in the.
Book the last line of defense is conservatives shouldn't see any.
Ground we should, fight and you'll forge a lot of
(25:14):
character in doing. It but we saw it pretty early
that they were going to be very aggressive with their executive,
orders and we were ready and we had a legal,
team and then you, know other states would join or
we would join with other, states but we tried to
take the lead as much as we. Could AND i
think though that once we got into the vaccine mandate,
cases once we got into the censorship, case we were
(25:35):
drawing a lot of attention because we were doing good.
Work we were taking on the tough fights and we were.
Winning it kind of became a.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Model you really did a tremendous. Job and the first
really big mal es say case on the social cost
of carbon. Rule for those of us who are not,
expert can you explain why did this matter so?
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Much? So this social cost of greenhouse gases rule was
the most important. Rule no one had ever heard. Of
what they were trying to. Do this is like The
Green New deal without anybody ever having to vote on.
It because what they would do was they would extrapolate
into hundreds of years into the, future taking into account
(26:14):
historical events that they would predict what would be impact
of you building something b what would be the carbon
impact of that years down the. Road it's all, speculation
but what it was meant to do was to give
unelected bureaucrats the ability to say no to things that
should have been allowed to be constructed or built by.
(26:35):
Law of, course you would have the right to build
this highway connecting point an POINT, b but they would
come up with some ridiculous excuse justified by this rule
to say no to. You so that was just like
the first. Instance, then of, course they tried to undo
all of the executive orders That President trump had on the,
border Like remain In, Mexico title forty two building the.
(26:57):
Wall we fought those and one for a. While, ultimately
Though biden was able to reverse the executive orders from
the previous. Administration but we held the dam back for a,
while and probably millions of people didn't come in for
the times in which we had injunctions in. Place but
it wasn't a lot of. SALT i, mean that's what
you ka saw was what it, was the, border on
the environmental, stuff on the just sort of personal freedom
(27:20):
side of. It think about. This congress passes The Chips,
act so you can build more chips in The United,
states sigen. Chips they were holding up a project In
arizona to do this because they hadn't hired enough ex
convicts to MEET dei. Requirements That congress never voted on.
Broadband there was money for broadband to connect Rural america
to The, internet and those projects were being held up
(27:42):
because there weren't climate action plans submitted by small. CONTRACTORS i,
mean this is kind of just the viating that can
exist in government that really restricts not just people's individual,
liberty but, progress, construction us being a dominant player for
pharmaceuticals that we need to be back, home or the industrial,
base the reshoring of. Manufacturing if you have a government
(28:05):
that's weaponized really against all of that, stuff it's really
hard to. Do so our job is to try to
fight back against those. Things when we saw it.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Was very impressive the number of different lawsuits you filed
in a short period of time before running for The.
Senate how did you pick which ones to? File biden
and his, Team we're giving you so many, opportunities how
did you single out and pick the ones you really
wanted to focus?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
On, nationally we were viewed The Republican Attorney's General. Association
it's a great. ORGANIZATION i was vice chaired for a,
while briefly chaired UNTIL i had to step down to
run for The. Senate it was a good. Group everybody
had really good relationships and some people would just kind
of take the, lead and some offices had more horsepower
than others just because of size or, focus and we
(28:50):
ended up just sort of just, saying, hey we've got something.
Drafted who wants to? Join and it's always just, initiative you.
Know but you, know it's interesting how some of these
cases that come, along like image in the Book Last
line Of, Defense how To beat The left And. Court
people can get it On amazon right. Now is like
the people who ask, me why did you decide to
file this censorship lawsuit The missouri Versus? Biden, well you,
Know i'm there with my. Team we're Watching jensaki at
(29:11):
the podium talk about, openly like, hey we're flagging this
stuff For facebook ON covid misinformation or. Something and then
they floated this idea of a disinformation governance, sport you,
know where the government would be deciding what the truth
is and what you could. Say and it just struck,
me knowing HOW i know things. Work if they were
willing to say that out loud, publicly there was a
(29:31):
lot more beneath the, surface and so we filed the
lawsuit In may of twenty twenty, two alleging that The
biden administration was, colluding coordinating course and social media companies
to do their bidding and sensor. Speech when we filed,
it of course everyone lampooned it as a conspiracy theory
and it was for attention grabbing purposes and all. This
(29:52):
but we made a strategic. DECISION i think this is
why the book will be interesting to people who aren't,
lawyers and it's not really written for. Lawyers LIKE i,
SAID i hope lawyers read, it but it's really for your,
audience like normal people who were willing to see what
was going on at the. Time, normally in those kind
of lawsuits new you seek an, injunction which is right,
away which is a temporary restraining order to get the
government or some party to stop doing what they're doing
(30:13):
that you find. Objectionable what we decided to do because
we knew we're going to need, Evidence we asked the
judge for discovery first and he granted. It and the
moment that all of this kind of came home to
me as just truly shocking was when we got the
reams and reams and thousands of pages of emails and
text messages from high ranking government officials to senior members
(30:33):
of leadership teams on social media saying take this. Down
THE cdc was giving them words and phrases to. Censor
they CENSORED Rfk junior day three of the administration because
of his encouraging vaccine asitency or whatever the issue. Was
it was just shocking how aggressive they. Were we all
know government can't censor your, speech but you can't outsource it.
(30:54):
Either then they were working with these NGOs new With
stanford And university Of washington to have them this stuff
too for social media. Companies and by the, way this
enterprise really kind of Predated biden needed coming in. Office
that's one of the things that's most. Shocking THE. Fbi
we took the deposition Of Elvis, chan who was pre
bucking The Hunter biden laptop story in twenty, twenty and
(31:14):
THE fbi had it in twenty. Nineteen they knew it was,
real yet they were telling social media companies look out
for This russian Hacken league. Operation what it turns, out
as early as twenty, seventeen they were working With democrat
staffers facilitating meetings with social media companies to flag certain
speech to take down about the border or things they found.
Objectionable and one of the crazy. Things is start connecting
(31:36):
all the dots. Here The General council at THE fbi
during the end of twenty, sixteen when you start This
Russia gate, nonsense was a guy by the name Of
James baker Me then during The Hunter biden laptop censorship
effort in twenty twenty is The General council Of. Twitter
so these, guys they were in some instances working hand in.
(31:58):
Glove in other, instances The biden administration was threatening. Investigations
section two thirty protections would go away if they didn't
do what they wanted them to. Do it's chilling that
kind of censorship regime in The United states Of. AMERICA
i don't care if you're A republican or A democrat
like that is not something we should accept in this
country and was, happening and we exposed it in The
missouri Versus biden lawsuit that we talk about in a.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Book when you're clearly making a historic impact As attorney,
general then you run for THE Us, Senate President trump endorses,
You you win, decisively and When trump himself, announces you're
one of the very first senators to endorse. Him why
did you move so?
Speaker 2 (32:37):
EARLY i Think President. Trump i've gotten to know him
really well as you'd spend time with. Him he Loves.
America he's. Authentic people see, it and he connects with real.
People AND i think where we're at right now in
this country is we need that more than. EVER i
also think the level of disruption that he brings to Permanent,
washington we need more of. It so for, me it
(33:00):
was a no, brainer AND i did everything THAT i.
Could i'd spent a lot of time on the campaign
trail with, them did WHATEVER i could open up before
he came in with the rallies and closing days of the.
Campaign he has also brought a great realignment of our
party to fight for working. People that's WHERE i grew.
UP i think working folks need a champion for, him
and The democrats have completely abandoned that. Space The democrats
(33:22):
THAT i grew up, around or pro life or pro,
gun those people don't hold elected office. Anymore So President trump,
SPOKE i think to. People and by the, way the
people that get hit with this double, whammy new of
their jobs were shipped overseas for lower, wages and then
as they're looking for new careers and new jobs through illegal,
immigration their wages were being undercut in that way, too
(33:44):
and they needed somebody to fight for. Him President trump's
been that, person and so, YEAH i was very. Early
AND i also thought that WHAT i saw in a
place Like missouri was people still very much wanted him
back in. OFFICE i just never thought anybody was ever
going to have a chance against the. GUY i believe
in them still do and so now be somebody that
(34:05):
gets to spend time with them or fight for his.
AGENDA i actually got to as a freshman. CENTER i
got to handle The precisions package in The senate that
we got. Done it's harder than it should have, been
but we were able to get that done and DEFUND,
npr which has been talked about for a long, time
to be able to get rid of all THE usaid wasteful.
Spending that was certainly a proud moment and WHY i
wanted to be in The senate fighting Alongside President.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
TRUMP i think you have, already in a relatively short,
career had an enormous impact both As Attorney general and
now As. Senator AND i think your new, Book The
Last line Of, Defense how To beat The left And,
court is going to become a basic study book for
every conservative who wants to better understand how we can
(34:46):
use the courts at least as well as the left
come and that we should not be shy about it
or hide from, it but be very willing to go
in and. Fight AND i want to thank you for joining.
Me you now have A New York times bestseller and
it's available On, amazon in the bookstores. Everywhere AND i
want to let our listeners know they can find out
more about all the different things you're doing in THE
(35:07):
Us senate by visiting your website At schmidt Dot senate dot.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Gov thanks, dude thank, You.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Thank. You to my, Guest Senator Eric, schmidt you can
get a link to buy his new, Book The Last
line Of defense on our show page at newsworld dot.
Com newworld is produced By gingrishtree sixty And. iHeartMedia our
executive producer Is Guarnsey, sloan our researcher Is Rachel, peterson
and our guest producer Is Lily. Hailey the artwork for
(35:40):
the show was created By Steve. Penley special thanks to
the team At gingwishtree. Sixty if you've been Enjoying, NEWTSWORLD
i hope you'll go To apple podcast and both rate
us with five stars and give us a review so
others can learn what it's all. About right, now listeners
of News world can sign up for my three free
weekly columns at gingishree sixty dot com slash. Newsletter i'm ner.
(36:03):
Gingrich this is newdswell
On this episode of Newts World. When the Biden administration
took office in January twenty twenty one, Eric Schmidt had
been Attorney General for the state of Missouri for two
years and had been focused on tackling violent crime. As
soon as he began to see the outrageous excesses of
the Biden administration, he and his team snapped into action,
(00:24):
waging war on the Biden regime's stunning attempts at government overreach,
winning some of the most important fights in modern American
history and helping set the stage for a return to
common sense in government now. In his new book, The
Last Line of Defense, Senator Schmidt takes us behind the
scenes of those battles for the first time and describes
(00:48):
how consertis can keep winning in court and beyond. Some
of his biggest court battles were against masked mandates, student
debt forgiveness, restrictions on Second Amendment rights, woke idealla in
our schools, open borders, attacks on free speech, and the
weaponization of government agencies. I am really pleased to welcome
(01:09):
my guest, Senator Eric Schmidt. He is a sixth generation
Missourian currently represents the people of Missouri and the United
States Senate, and he previously served as his state's attorney general. Eric.
(01:32):
Welcome and thank you for joining me on Newts World.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Dude, it is great deed back with you. I was
on four years ago when we sued China, and a
lot has happened in those four years, so it's great
to with you.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
It's hard to believe how much has gone on in
the last four years.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Isn't it. Yes, the world's turned over A few times.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Before we start discussing your book, I understand you just
recently announced a historic FBI investment to combat violent crime,
and say, Lewis, tell us about how that partnership came together.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah. So this administration from the get go was very
open about their desire to help crime plague cities deal
with those challenges. And so during the confirmation process and
talking to Pambondi and talking to Cash Betel specifically, we
kind of hatched this plan as Cash was saying, hey, look,
I want to get FBI agents out of Washington into
(02:25):
the field, and I said, well, I've got just the
place for you. And so we've been working on this
for a while and it represents the largest infusion per
capital of any place in the country of permanent FBI
agents to take on violent crime. So these are not
going to be vapor pushers. These are people that are
specifically dedicated to taking on the worst of the worst
because what we're seeing happen in Washington, d C in
(02:48):
a different context. Of course, a little bit because of
Washington d C versus Saint Louis in the state is
that there's just no substitute news for a law enforcement presence.
There just isn't and prosecutions that follow, and so that's
what we want to see and their willingness to do it.
I think this will end up being a model for
other places. So you'll have the permanent presence of more
FBI agents to take on by the crime. And then
(03:09):
also we'll be working towards multilateral efforts with other agencies
like the DEA, atf ICE, others to kind of surge
in Saint Louis and other places to get the worst
of the worst off the streets.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
What do you expect in terms of the actual number
of agents.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Or can I keep in that number a little bit
on the down low? I guess, so to speak, But
it's not a small number. And what we really want
is again because we talked about it. I mean, you've
seen FBI agents go to particular places. Maybe it's an
anti terrorism kind of thing, and all those things are important,
But when you're dealing with cities like Chicago or Saint
Louis or any major metro area right now, or the
(03:47):
urban core, what they really need are people who are
willing to go in and arrest the bad guys and
chase them and find them and go get them and
put them in jail.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Why do you think the local police just literally can't
cope with Well.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
There's a lot of reasons. These guys are heroes, you know, newt.
But something happened on the way to where we're at now,
which is during that whole defund the police movement. Ironically,
that kind of began in Ferguson ten years ago in
the Saint Louis area when you saw that nonsense happen,
and that was really the beginning of the Black Lives
Matter movement, which is this neo Marxist group that's really
been exposed. But then, of course in the summer of
(04:23):
twenty twenty, with those riots, really you saw a lot
of law enforcement professionals early retirement. Somebody asked me when
I was Attorney General what keeps you up at night?
And there were a few things, but one of the
things was what prominent was that just all the people
that will never go into law enforcement right because of
the disrespect they were shown. So their budgets were slashed,
they were being spit on. Morale was really low. We're
(04:46):
starting to see an uptick I think in that now,
which is good. So the numbers have been depleted. They
were not able to do their jobs new in places
like seeing Wes we don't have anymore. But Kim Garden
was a Soros funded prosecutor. There was much more likely
to go after cops in many instances than criminals. We
had the McCloskey incident where she went after people defending
their homes as opposed to the rioters. So you had
(05:07):
this environment where they were out doing their jobs in
some of the roughest neighborhoods, but then the prosecutor wouldn't
actually charge on the crime. Now, one of the things
I did was as AG we partnered with the US
Attorney's Office to get around that to some degree, to
go after carjackings and an awful possession of firearms in
a federal court system. But now that she's gone, it
sort of opens up, I think, more opportunities. So these
(05:28):
partnerships with the federal agents and locals be working side
by side is really what this is about. So it's
increased capacity while they grow their numbers locally. But you
got to have some leadership as far as them being
deployed and letting them do their jobs. And I think
that's the lesson.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Well, it is amazing. Whether it's Saint Louis or New Orleans,
or Baltimore, or Chicago or Washington, d C. The degree
of decay in terms of violent crime in the last
ten or twelve years has been really startling and totally
different than it was a general.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
It is and one thing that's worth noting, I think
too is one of the things I think that's really
incredible about trump forty seven presidency right now is all
of these assumptions that people made about intractable problems that
couldn't be solved in many ways are being solved. Think
of the border. Joe Biden sort of threw his hands
up and Congress was debating this idea of adding more laws,
(06:22):
which was a Democrat trojan horse that I objected to.
I just said he needed a new president. And that's
what we got, a new president. Now we have all
time low border crossings or meeting mass migration with mass deportations,
which is a good thing. And then you look and
see what's happening in Washington, d C. I mean, carjackings
over two week period are down eighty five percent. Robberies
are down fifty percent. So we shouldn't just accept that
(06:43):
these problems are too big to solve. We just need
the willingness and the political will to go do it.
And I think President Trump's leading the way on that.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
I was surprised, given that I'd always known you when
you were Attorney general. I didn't realize that you didn't
grow up around lawyers. What drew you to the law and.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
The Yeah, I grew up in a working class neighborhood.
My dad worked seven days a week in the midnight shift.
My grandfather operated a forklift. My other grandfather was a butcher.
For me, I saw law as giving structure for people
to pursue their dreams, whatever that was, and it kind
of coincided. Then my entry into politics was with my
son having some medical challenges spurred me to action. But
(07:21):
I also when I was growing up, I watched Crossfire
with my dad at night we went to my ball
games where we watched Crossfire, watch Jack Camp, I watched
Pap Buchanan. I was in college during the nineteen ninety
four revolution that you led. I mean, those were formative
things for me. Running for office wasn't necessarily something I
was really considering. I was practicing law, and I was
attracted to the structure of it and what it meant
(07:42):
for our republic and the fact that in courtrooms the
facts are supposed to matter. I was attracted to it.
So I went to the first person to go to
college out of high school and my family, and the
certainly first person to go to law school. So to
then serve as the Attorney General was just a big
honor for me. It was just kind of unimaginable where
I grew up that somebody like me would be in that.
So I just tried to make the most of it.
And the rule of law I think is just central
(08:03):
to this American experiment.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
I think you cannot have freedom without the rule of law.
It's not possible. And I think it's something that we
don't drive home often enough. In the end, each of
us individually is protected by the Constitution and the laws
that grow out of it, And in fact, it is
precisely the weak who are the most in danger if
(08:27):
the rule of law breaks down, which is why I've
always been astonished that liberals who claim to be for
the poor don't understand that it is precisely the poor
who most need the rule of law, because there the
ones most likely to be exploited in a lawless environment.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
That was my family's experience in the sense that I
didn't know any lawyers growing up. There was nobody to
call that could help. I viewed it as a way
of being able to fight for the little guy in
many ways, and it's one of the things that attracted me.
But also, as you point out, the rule of law
is so important. It's why when I Attorney General and
Biden came in, what was so astonishing about what was
(09:05):
happening and why I wrote the book Last Line of Defense,
How to Beat the Left and court people can get on.
Amazon just got hit with the designation of New York
Times Bestseller, which is you know, nude for a conservative
is a big deal. But I think The point of
it is I saw what was like. It's kind of
a field manual of what it was like to be
on the front lines against this left wing lawfair machine
(09:26):
that came at as from so many different angles. It
was the election of twenty twenty. We beat Mark Elias
three times in Missouri. He was successful in other states
to weaken their election laws. It was the COVID restrictions
that seemingly went on forever and ever. We sued fifty
school districts to get in the back off mass mandates.
We took on the student loan debt forgiveness scan that
would have stuck taxpayers with a half a trillion dollars.
(09:47):
We took that to the Supreme Court. We won. We
took the vaccine mandate cases all the way to Supreme
Court and we won. And perhaps most famously, with fouled
the Missouri versus Biden lawsuit, which before Eline Musk bought
Twitter before congressional hearings, really exposed this censorship enterprise that
the Biden administration was working with big tech companies when
that was just called the conspiracy theory. So we took
on DEI, we took on CRT, We took on the
(10:09):
net zero banking alliance, all that in a couple of years.
I'm really proud of that work, and I think the
book gives the reader your audience. It's not written for lawyers.
I hope lawyers read it, but it's really what was
it like to see all this happening? And what was
it like to take Anthony Fauci's deposition in that Missouri
versus Biden case. What was it like to take Elvis
Chan's deposition the FBI agent who was pre bunking the
(10:29):
Hunter Biden laptop story on the way to twenty twenty.
All that's in the book, and more importantly than just
war stories, it is a playbook of what we need
to do when we see this stuff happening sometime soon,
hopefully farther away, but it'll happen again.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
I think part of your natural aggressiveness came out of
your background in sports. You were very active in playing
in sports.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
It's right, I had not written a book before. You know,
when you do, you reflect on what were the experiences
that forged you in this moment your willingness to stand
up and fight, And the title of the book is
Last Line of Defense. I realized I played a lot
of sports growing up, including in college. I realized that
in every sport that I played, in basketball, i'm six
six too, which has probably explained some of this. But
(11:34):
in basketball I played in the paint, in baseball, I
played in the outfield, and in football I played free safety,
which in every sport was like the last line of defense,
I mean, your last barrier. So I suppose I've always
kind of, whether by nature or nurture, embraced the role
of being a defender of the things that we hold dear.
(11:55):
And I love this country, our framework, I love our people.
I love America. What I saw happening from the Biden administration,
the left had taken over that White House. People who
were just probably a year earlier with a gender studies
degree from Harvard writing white papers about open borders, were
suddenly in charge of opening up our border. And he
saw corporations fall in line here too, you know, in
(12:16):
your home town of Atlanta and Coca Cola, they were
having struggle sessions where employees had to explain how they
were going to be less white. And then you had
five year olds being forced to wear masks all day long,
even though there was no science to support. It was
just a wild, crazy time defined by a pandemic and
social unrest. And I think the most aggressively liberal administration
(12:37):
we've seen in American history.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Oh, I think that's right. I think they basically were
Obama's third term, and they brought all of his most
radical appointees forward to be the Biden administration. It's a
big reason why Trump ended up winning, because the country
was increasingly turned off by how radical and how aggressive.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I start the book Last Line of Defense, How to
Beat the Left and court people and get Now. In
November of twenty twenty four, the fever broke. I really
believe it really kind of looked back on the fever
dream that we were living through, and you know, it
was a time of these lockdowns and mandates and censorship,
not somewhere else but in our country. And I've said before,
(13:20):
I don't think power necessarily corrupts, but I do think
power reveals, and I think COVID in particular was a
test run. It revealed the true nature of the left
and what they would do if they could actually consolidate
power and weaponize it in ways we've not seen before.
Take that, apart from even the lawfare against President Trump
that they were willing to employ because they labeled him
(13:41):
a quote unquote threat to democracy when they were bulldozing
democracy and the republic along the way. It's just very revealing,
and I think you're right. The American people sat in
their own jury box and they saw all this stuff happening,
and they rendered their verdict. Thank god.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Biden was so bad and the Democrats he represents were
so bad that he actually created an environment for Trump
to be even bolder and, if you will, more radical
in his reforms than he was in the first term,
because now he's operating against the backdrop of things that
are horrible. This is not the America they wanted.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I agree, And I also think and I told President Trump,
I play well enough to get invited back to play
golf with President Trump. I only disposed private conversations with him,
but I did tell him one time that you know,
it's almost the non consecutive term for him is in
some ways, I think it's divinely inspired, because not only
did you see the excesses of the Biden term, but
(14:39):
he also was able to put together a team now
and a strategy. You know, would have been different if
it would have been the consecutive term. By the way,
his incentive structure is different now too. You know, he's
got this four year window here to do all of
the things that as conservatives we've thought about doing, but
not a lot of people have had the guts to
go do. I also think that's one of his great
(14:59):
leg sees to our party is he's inspired people to
be fearless and the left that's never been their problem.
They want to upend things and they don't apologize for it.
But just look at this redistricting battle that's going to
unfold across the country. That would have been unthinkable for
Republicans to engage in that. I hope we do because
the Democrats have done it. They've already done it well,
(15:21):
you just ought to play by the same rules. And again,
the reason why I wrote the book the last line
of defense was in the legal world. I think conservatives
seated the courts too easily in the past. We've got
to be willing to fight on all fronts, and that
means in the Article three branch in the courts too.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
I have to go back, just for a minute, to
your athletic background. If you were six six and you
were free safety, you must be very fast A.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Long time ago, Nick, though in fact I probably should
have been a tight end, but I couldn't put on
the weight when I was eighteen nineteen years old. That
came later, a little later in life. I had some
wheels back then, but that's a long time ago. And
the only time I get to do anything now nude
is in the Congressional baseball game.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yes, I'd never thought about it, but I guess if
you are a free safety who's six', six you also
just by putting your arms out cover a lot more
of the field than a smaller guy.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Does, well it was a bit of a ball, hawk
SO i had a lot of. Fun but, also you,
know growing up WHERE i grew up, Too i'm not
afraid of confrontation. EITHER i think that if you care
about the things that you believe, in as you, know
you've got to be in the, arena and when you do,
that you realize that when you get on the other
side of, it there's a lot of things that you
being proud. Of and what PEOPLE i think are dying
for more than anything right now is authentic leadership and
(16:32):
you just be. Yourself and for, Me i've always been
a fighter in that, way AND i do think it's
interesting now as The democrats will fall over themselves to
position themselves this sort of fake tough guy thing that
they're all trying to pull. Off it's just fake, authenticity
like they just discovered cuss. Words it's just so.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Ridiculous SO i thought that Tim wolves trying to use
a shotgun was probably as good an example are for that,
matter back in two thousand and, four Watching John carey
try to go goose hunting in an outfit that he
clearly had bought that.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Morning, hey you wonder why they have a problem with
young men right? Now that would explain some of. It
AND i also, think by the, way what they did
DURING covid the young people that is also as you
AND i both, Know i'm jen. X even though it's
gotten way more conservative as people get, older which is
typically the, trajectory the current eighteen to twenty four year
(17:24):
old population is more conservative than any generation before. Them
SO i think that bodes well for us too if
we can keep this coalition.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Together in terms of coalitions only go back from you
run for The Senate Missouri senate in two thousand and,
eight what led you to decide to get into elected.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
OFFICE i was in my early. THIRTIES i had just
made a partner and things were, great and we were
starting a, family and my, Son stephen was, born and
we found out just five months in that he was
born with a rare genetic. Condition in, fact we took
him to the hospital the dermatologists because he had the
sort of an angel wing birthmark on his, leg and
we thought so little of the doctor's. APPOINTMENT i joke
(18:00):
that my wife let me Take steven to the dermatologist that.
Day SO i take him and they put him under
a black, light and the dermatologist, said he probably has
something called tuberous. Sclerosis will run some more, tests AND
i was, like what is. That turns out it's a
genetic condition where tumors form in different, organs Including stephen's,
brain so it severely affected his. Development he just turned
twenty one last. Week he's, nonverbal he's on the autism,
(18:21):
spectrum but he is, epilepsy which is the most medically
challenging part of the, diagnosis so he's seizures almost every.
Day but when he was really, young we were just
getting accustomed to this. Diagnosis he would have seizures that
would last a long, time including a four hour Seizure.
Newt you, KNOW i was holding his hand on the hospital.
Bed they were trying these medications to try to get
it to. Stop nothing would. Work finally the last one.
(18:42):
Did we almost Lost. Stephen we were in THE icu
for over a week AND i went through this kind of,
discernment this reflection on what DO i want to do
with my? Life that was something as a first time,
father who was you, know in my early, Thirties it
kind of spurred me into want to do, more and
so for, me it was running for office to try
to make a. Difference that's HOW i decided to do,
it after a lot of, prayer And steven's always been
(19:03):
that inspiration to go do. It he still is and
to fight for. THINGS i think there's probably something to
that WHERE i know That stephen isn't going to have
those same. Opportunities he has no. WORDS i think it
propels me to make the most of. It so that's
WHY i ran for the State. Senate was able to
do some things there In, missouri autism insurance, reform tax,
cuts taking on government overreach that did, that and then
(19:23):
was in statewide, office as you, know his attorney. General
and then When Roy blunt announced he wasn't going to
seek another, term jumped into that race and was. Successful But,
stephen it was the catalytic event for all of, this
and still to a day kind of my.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Touchdown it must have been very frightening to see a
young child have those kind of.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Seizures, yeah And stephen still. Does we haven't had a
four hour one in a. While he still will. Have
grandma see hears you feel very powerless because there's nothing
you can really do about it except pray and be
there for. Him so very. Love but it's taught me a.
Lot it's taught me a lot about what's really, important
what really matters in this, life and that you, know
(20:03):
and strengthen my. FAITH i know that sometimes that sounds
strange to, people BUT i think That god has given
Us stephen to protect. HIM i talk about that in
the book a little bit, Too that protect or INSTINCT
i GUESS i had in, sports AND i remember specifically
WHEN i was in seventh grade there were some bullies
picking on a kid who had special, needs And, i'd
for whatever, Reason i'd whisperred to defend, him didn't really
(20:26):
know the kid that, well but felt like that was
unfair and eventually shamed these guys with my, words but
was prepared to go further than. That BUT i remember
going home and my dad was a great guy and
still living and just, said, yeah you don't ever let
anybody take advantage of somebody in that kind of. Position
and that stuck with me a. Little DID i know
That i'd be a father right of a son with
those kind of, issues with more profound issues than. That
(20:47):
SO i Think god Sent steven Our way for a
bunch of, reasons and he's taught me a, lot AND
i think anybody that's ever met him made him a better.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
Person you've responded to the challenge and are remarkably caring
in compassionate, way WHICH i think is a wonderful model
for the rest of.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Us, well thank.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
You you go to the State, senate you survey eight.
(21:28):
Years what led you to run for attorney?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
General, well actually there was a stint Where missouri was
changing over. It as you know as a student of,
Politics missouri had been this ultimate Bell weather and was
a purple. STATE i, Mean Harry truman was From, missouri
right was run By democrats for a very long. Time
republicans would break through every once in a. While it
was always a very conservative, state But republicans really didn't break.
(21:50):
Through they did in the legislature in the early two,
thousands like a lot of, places but in statewide offices
not so. Much in twenty, sixteen for, example every statewide
office holder was A democrat except for. One and that
was the year that we kind of broke. Through Josh
hawley was actually attorney general before, me AND i was
elected treasurer and we kind of swept. Through hally then
(22:12):
goes to The. SENATE i was appointed then to fill
his remaining two years of his, term ran for attorney
general in one in twenty, twenty and then The senate
was in twenty twenty. Two SO i served as attorney
general for four, years But Josh holly was the immediate,
predecessor and Then Adrian bailey followed me. Up so we've
had a good run Of AG's And. Missouri you, KNOW
i Think missouri in particular knew you'll appreciate. THIS i
(22:35):
think people want to. Understand as somebody asked me one,
time is it a northern? State is it the southern?
State is in A midwestern, state is it A western?
State and my answer is, yes it's kind of all those.
Things that's a cultural. Crossroads but one thing that ties
all those regions together is it's always been very suspicious
of a federal government one thousand miles away telling us
how to run our. Lives and SO i think WHEN
(22:55):
i WAS ag and we saw that happening In, washington
WHICH i relay in the Book Last, line it was
our time to stand up and fight for not Just,
missourians but for the rest of the country on some big.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Wins you happen to be in a unique position because
you had two years With trump where you could focus on,
crime and then, boom you suddenly have this very aggressive
left wing radicalism of The biden. Demonstration in terms of
your own thinking and your own team's, operation how long
did it take you to shift gears and realize that
(23:25):
you were in a different.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
World, well we had Special Litigation unit sort of think
of it as a seal team that you have in
an AG's. OFFICE i wanted to have WHEN i came,
in even the first two. YEARS i wanted to have
the MODEL ag office in the. Country and we looked
and saw were the things that we could, do so
we wanted to push back against federal. Overreach at the state,
level we weren't. Deferring think About chevron. Deference we weren't.
Deferring even though we were defending. Agencies we never argued
(23:47):
to the court that they were the experts who wanted
the judges to rule on the law as it was,
written not how they wanted to be or what some
experts that it should. Be and at the local, level
we would go after local governments that exceeded their. Authority
think of mass, mandates think of those sorts of. Things
BUT i was. Fortunate we had a great. TEAM i
mean My Solicitor general and for your, audience that's the
person that typically will argue the cases that The Missouri
(24:08):
Supreme court or The United States Supreme court was a
guy in the named Of John, sower WHO i recommended To President.
Trump And John sowers now The Solicitor general of The
United states Of. America so we had a great. Team
John sower led that. GROUP i had a great chief of,
Staff Justin. Smith and what, Happened newt and you appreciate
this when you exhibit that kind of. Leadership we started
having people from all across the country apply to work
(24:31):
in our office because they saw the work that we were.
Doing and when you look at the, landscape the country's
divided into different judicial. Circuits missouri is the biggest state
in The Eighth, circuit which is typically pretty. Conservative appellate
court in The Eighth, circuit and then you kind of
had a mix in the district court. Level, now the
first four district court judges appointed By President trump or
In Saint, louis they all worked for me in The
(24:53):
Attorney general's. Office so you're starting to see then one
of the Things i'm most proud, of that courage was
contagious and it's playing itself out now in senior positions
at The department Of justice and courts and other places
THAT i think we can be really proud of. It
and again that's part of the playbook here in the.
Book the last line of defense is conservatives shouldn't see any.
Ground we should, fight and you'll forge a lot of
(25:14):
character in doing. It but we saw it pretty early
that they were going to be very aggressive with their executive,
orders and we were ready and we had a legal,
team and then you, know other states would join or
we would join with other, states but we tried to
take the lead as much as we. Could AND i
think though that once we got into the vaccine mandate,
cases once we got into the censorship, case we were
(25:35):
drawing a lot of attention because we were doing good.
Work we were taking on the tough fights and we were.
Winning it kind of became a.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Model you really did a tremendous. Job and the first
really big mal es say case on the social cost
of carbon. Rule for those of us who are not,
expert can you explain why did this matter so?
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Much? So this social cost of greenhouse gases rule was
the most important. Rule no one had ever heard. Of
what they were trying to. Do this is like The
Green New deal without anybody ever having to vote on.
It because what they would do was they would extrapolate
into hundreds of years into the, future taking into account
(26:14):
historical events that they would predict what would be impact
of you building something b what would be the carbon
impact of that years down the. Road it's all, speculation
but what it was meant to do was to give
unelected bureaucrats the ability to say no to things that
should have been allowed to be constructed or built by.
(26:35):
Law of, course you would have the right to build
this highway connecting point an POINT, b but they would
come up with some ridiculous excuse justified by this rule
to say no to. You so that was just like
the first. Instance, then of, course they tried to undo
all of the executive orders That President trump had on the,
border Like remain In, Mexico title forty two building the.
(26:57):
Wall we fought those and one for a. While, ultimately
Though biden was able to reverse the executive orders from
the previous. Administration but we held the dam back for a,
while and probably millions of people didn't come in for
the times in which we had injunctions in. Place but
it wasn't a lot of. SALT i, mean that's what
you ka saw was what it, was the, border on
the environmental, stuff on the just sort of personal freedom
(27:20):
side of. It think about. This congress passes The Chips,
act so you can build more chips in The United,
states sigen. Chips they were holding up a project In
arizona to do this because they hadn't hired enough ex
convicts to MEET dei. Requirements That congress never voted on.
Broadband there was money for broadband to connect Rural america
to The, internet and those projects were being held up
(27:42):
because there weren't climate action plans submitted by small. CONTRACTORS i,
mean this is kind of just the viating that can
exist in government that really restricts not just people's individual,
liberty but, progress, construction us being a dominant player for
pharmaceuticals that we need to be back, home or the industrial,
base the reshoring of. Manufacturing if you have a government
(28:05):
that's weaponized really against all of that, stuff it's really
hard to. Do so our job is to try to
fight back against those. Things when we saw it.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Was very impressive the number of different lawsuits you filed
in a short period of time before running for The.
Senate how did you pick which ones to? File biden
and his, Team we're giving you so many, opportunities how
did you single out and pick the ones you really
wanted to focus?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
On, nationally we were viewed The Republican Attorney's General. Association
it's a great. ORGANIZATION i was vice chaired for a,
while briefly chaired UNTIL i had to step down to
run for The. Senate it was a good. Group everybody
had really good relationships and some people would just kind
of take the, lead and some offices had more horsepower
than others just because of size or, focus and we
(28:50):
ended up just sort of just, saying, hey we've got something.
Drafted who wants to? Join and it's always just, initiative you.
Know but you, know it's interesting how some of these
cases that come, along like image in the Book Last
line Of, Defense how To beat The left And. Court
people can get it On amazon right. Now is like
the people who ask, me why did you decide to
file this censorship lawsuit The missouri Versus? Biden, well you,
Know i'm there with my. Team we're Watching jensaki at
(29:11):
the podium talk about, openly like, hey we're flagging this
stuff For facebook ON covid misinformation or. Something and then
they floated this idea of a disinformation governance, sport you,
know where the government would be deciding what the truth
is and what you could. Say and it just struck,
me knowing HOW i know things. Work if they were
willing to say that out loud, publicly there was a
(29:31):
lot more beneath the, surface and so we filed the
lawsuit In may of twenty twenty, two alleging that The
biden administration was, colluding coordinating course and social media companies
to do their bidding and sensor. Speech when we filed,
it of course everyone lampooned it as a conspiracy theory
and it was for attention grabbing purposes and all. This
(29:52):
but we made a strategic. DECISION i think this is
why the book will be interesting to people who aren't,
lawyers and it's not really written for. Lawyers LIKE i,
SAID i hope lawyers read, it but it's really for your,
audience like normal people who were willing to see what
was going on at the. Time, normally in those kind
of lawsuits new you seek an, injunction which is right,
away which is a temporary restraining order to get the
government or some party to stop doing what they're doing
(30:13):
that you find. Objectionable what we decided to do because
we knew we're going to need, Evidence we asked the
judge for discovery first and he granted. It and the
moment that all of this kind of came home to
me as just truly shocking was when we got the
reams and reams and thousands of pages of emails and
text messages from high ranking government officials to senior members
(30:33):
of leadership teams on social media saying take this. Down
THE cdc was giving them words and phrases to. Censor
they CENSORED Rfk junior day three of the administration because
of his encouraging vaccine asitency or whatever the issue. Was
it was just shocking how aggressive they. Were we all
know government can't censor your, speech but you can't outsource it.
(30:54):
Either then they were working with these NGOs new With
stanford And university Of washington to have them this stuff
too for social media. Companies and by the, way this
enterprise really kind of Predated biden needed coming in. Office
that's one of the things that's most. Shocking THE. Fbi
we took the deposition Of Elvis, chan who was pre
bucking The Hunter biden laptop story in twenty, twenty and
(31:14):
THE fbi had it in twenty. Nineteen they knew it was,
real yet they were telling social media companies look out
for This russian Hacken league. Operation what it turns, out
as early as twenty, seventeen they were working With democrat
staffers facilitating meetings with social media companies to flag certain
speech to take down about the border or things they found.
Objectionable and one of the crazy. Things is start connecting
(31:36):
all the dots. Here The General council at THE fbi
during the end of twenty, sixteen when you start This
Russia gate, nonsense was a guy by the name Of
James baker Me then during The Hunter biden laptop censorship
effort in twenty twenty is The General council Of. Twitter
so these, guys they were in some instances working hand in.
(31:58):
Glove in other, instances The biden administration was threatening. Investigations
section two thirty protections would go away if they didn't
do what they wanted them to. Do it's chilling that
kind of censorship regime in The United states Of. AMERICA
i don't care if you're A republican or A democrat
like that is not something we should accept in this
country and was, happening and we exposed it in The
missouri Versus biden lawsuit that we talk about in a.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Book when you're clearly making a historic impact As attorney,
general then you run for THE Us, Senate President trump endorses,
You you win, decisively and When trump himself, announces you're
one of the very first senators to endorse. Him why
did you move so?
Speaker 2 (32:37):
EARLY i Think President. Trump i've gotten to know him
really well as you'd spend time with. Him he Loves.
America he's. Authentic people see, it and he connects with real.
People AND i think where we're at right now in
this country is we need that more than. EVER i
also think the level of disruption that he brings to Permanent,
washington we need more of. It so for, me it
(33:00):
was a no, brainer AND i did everything THAT i.
Could i'd spent a lot of time on the campaign
trail with, them did WHATEVER i could open up before
he came in with the rallies and closing days of the.
Campaign he has also brought a great realignment of our
party to fight for working. People that's WHERE i grew.
UP i think working folks need a champion for, him
and The democrats have completely abandoned that. Space The democrats
(33:22):
THAT i grew up, around or pro life or pro,
gun those people don't hold elected office. Anymore So President trump,
SPOKE i think to. People and by the, way the
people that get hit with this double, whammy new of
their jobs were shipped overseas for lower, wages and then
as they're looking for new careers and new jobs through illegal,
immigration their wages were being undercut in that way, too
(33:44):
and they needed somebody to fight for. Him President trump's
been that, person and so, YEAH i was very. Early
AND i also thought that WHAT i saw in a
place Like missouri was people still very much wanted him
back in. OFFICE i just never thought anybody was ever
going to have a chance against the. GUY i believe
in them still do and so now be somebody that
(34:05):
gets to spend time with them or fight for his.
AGENDA i actually got to as a freshman. CENTER i
got to handle The precisions package in The senate that
we got. Done it's harder than it should have, been
but we were able to get that done and DEFUND,
npr which has been talked about for a long, time
to be able to get rid of all THE usaid wasteful.
Spending that was certainly a proud moment and WHY i
wanted to be in The senate fighting Alongside President.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
TRUMP i think you have, already in a relatively short,
career had an enormous impact both As Attorney general and
now As. Senator AND i think your new, Book The
Last line Of, Defense how To beat The left And,
court is going to become a basic study book for
every conservative who wants to better understand how we can
(34:46):
use the courts at least as well as the left
come and that we should not be shy about it
or hide from, it but be very willing to go
in and. Fight AND i want to thank you for joining.
Me you now have A New York times bestseller and
it's available On, amazon in the bookstores. Everywhere AND i
want to let our listeners know they can find out
more about all the different things you're doing in THE
(35:07):
Us senate by visiting your website At schmidt Dot senate dot.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Gov thanks, dude thank, You.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Thank. You to my, Guest Senator Eric, schmidt you can
get a link to buy his new, Book The Last
line Of defense on our show page at newsworld dot.
Com newworld is produced By gingrishtree sixty And. iHeartMedia our
executive producer Is Guarnsey, sloan our researcher Is Rachel, peterson
and our guest producer Is Lily. Hailey the artwork for
(35:40):
the show was created By Steve. Penley special thanks to
the team At gingwishtree. Sixty if you've been Enjoying, NEWTSWORLD
i hope you'll go To apple podcast and both rate
us with five stars and give us a review so
others can learn what it's all. About right, now listeners
of News world can sign up for my three free
weekly columns at gingishree sixty dot com slash. Newsletter i'm ner.
(36:03):
Gingrich this is newdswell
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