Show Notes
Eric Schmitt, Missouri Attorney General and candidate for US Senate in Missouri is this week’s guest on Liberty & Justice with Matt Whitaker. Eric and Matt discuss important law and order issues and the challenges that face our country and how they can be solved.Eric Schmitt is Missouri’s 43rd Attorney General and chief legal and law enforcement official. A lifelong, sixth-generation Missourian, Eric is driven by his constitutional conservative beliefs, which he applies every day as the lawyer for all six million Missourians. Eric has proven over and over that he will boldly defend the rule of law. He has remained the leader Missourians can count on.
Eric and his wife Jaime have three children: Stephen, Sophia and Olivia. Their son, Stephen was born with a rare genetic condition causing tumors on his organs. He also has epilepsy, is on the autism spectrum, and is non-verbal. Eric’s son was his inspiration to run for office to be a voice for individuals like him and their families. One of Eric’s early legislative victories was taking on insurance companies by leading a bipartisan effort to ensure Missouri families are covered when they need it the most – including therapies for autism.
As Missouri Attorney General, Eric launched multiple major initiatives to better the lives of Missourians across the state. In his first month in office, Eric launched his Safer Streets Initiative, featuring unprecedented cooperation between the U.S Attorney’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office, taking on violent crime across the state. Recently, Eric has launched his Office’s first Cold Case Unit to deliver justice to victims who have waited far too long.
Eric has also been committed to tackling the opioid crisis and launched the Real Opioid Pain initiative to hear from Missouri citizens who have been impacted by this crisis and is battling Big Pharma in court. To address the backlog of untested sexual assault kits, Eric launched the SAFE Kit initiative to bring justice for the brave individuals who came forward to tell their stories.
During Trump’s Presidency, Eric took the lead on backing up the Administration’s policies. Eric was the first Attorney General to sue China to hold them accountable for unleashing the coronavirus on Americans. When Facebook was canceling conservatives and Google was using their platform to hurt consumers and businesses, Eric filed a lawsuit and launched a massive antitrust probe to stop Big Tech abuses. When voter integrity came into question, Eric authored and led the brief supporting the Pennsylvania Republican Party against the unconstitutional actions of the Pennsylvania courts, and he authored and led a brief in support of Texas’ lawsuit against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin before the United States Supreme Court, where 17 other states to joined him.
Since Joe Biden has taken over the White House, Eric has been one of the leading state attorneys general to hold the Biden administration accountable, protect the Constitution and the America First Agenda. He has been on the front lines of every fight President Biden has waged against our jobs, our freedoms, and our safety. When President Biden canceled the Keystone XL Pipeline and thousands of jobs with it, Eric demanded it be reinstated and filed suit. When President Biden and John Kerry circumvented the Constitution to set a “social cost” on greenhouse gases, a move that would cost not thousands but millions of jobs, destroy the energy and agriculture industries, and lower the standard of living for working families, Eric immediately sued him. When Joe Biden halted Operation Talon endangering American lives, Eric pushed back against President Biden, urging him to reverse his order.
Eric’s love for the Constitution – the bedrock of America’s legal system – inspired him to teach a course on American Civics. Eric taught “21st Century American Civics” at his alma mater, Saint Louis University, where students had the opportunity to study the evolution of political thought, the American Enlightenment and to explore leadership qualities necessary to solve the big issues facing America today and in the future.
Previously, Missourians elected Eric as their 46th State Treasurer. Before serving as Treasurer, he was elected twice to represent the state’s 15th Senate District as a Missouri Senator where he authored two of the largest tax cuts in state history, championed the landmark legislation to end the unjust practice of taxation by citation and was a staunch defender of life and the Second Amendment.
Eric attended DeSmet Jesuit High School and went on to graduate cum laude from Truman State University. After graduation, he attended law school at Saint Louis University where he received his J.D. and served as an editor of the Law Review. He served for over 16 years in private legal practice where he received numerous awards for his commitment to justice and the rule of law.
Matthew G. Whitaker was acting Attorney General of the United States (2018-2019). Prior to becoming acting Attorney General, Mr. Whitaker served as Chief of Staff to the Attorney General. He was appointed as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa by President George W. Bush, serving from 2004-2009. Whitaker was the managing partner of Des Moines based law firm, Whitaker Hagenow & Gustoff LLP from 2009 until rejoining DOJ in 2017. He was also the Executive Director for FACT, The Foundation for Accountability & Civic Trust, an ethics and accountability watchdog, between 2014 and 2017. Mr. Whitaker is Author of the book--Above the Law, The Inside Story of How the Justice Department Tried to Subvert President Trump.
Mr. Whitaker graduated with a Master of Business Administration, Juris Doctor, and Bachelor of Arts from the University of Iowa. While at Iowa, Mr. Whitaker was a three-year letterman on the football team where he received the prestigious Big Ten Medal of Honor.
Mr. Whitaker is now a Co-Chair of the Center for Law and Justice at America First Policy Institute and a Senior Fellow at the American Conservative Union Foundation. Matt is on the Board of Directors for America First Legal Foundation and is a Senior Advisor to IronGate Capital Advisors. He is also Of Counsel with the Graves Garrett law firm. Whitaker appears regularly to discuss legal and political issues on Fox News, Newsmax and other news outlets. He splits his time between Iowa, Florida and Washington, D.C.
Eposode Transcript
Matt Whitaker [00:00:00] Welcome to Liberty and Justice, I'm your host, Matt Whitaker. I'm excited to have my friend, the state attorney general from Missouri, Eric Schmitt, join us today. How are you?
Eric Schmitt [00:00:11] I'm great, man. How are
Matt Whitaker [00:00:12] you? I'm doing very well. Thanks for taking the time today. We're going to talk about a lot of interesting topics. Many. You're on the front lines of. And I just think so much of it has. Because of this, Biden administration has been pushed to the states to try to enforce these laws. I mean, generally before we get into sort of title 42 and so many other things. What's your experience right now with the federal government in trying to get them to do their job really across the board?
Eric Schmitt [00:00:45] I mean, it's pretty remarkable. I think what you're seeing that the the administrative state has been supercharged by this administration. I mean, they they don't want to go try to convince anybody of anything. They want to manipulate these agencies to move an agenda that's pretty radical. I mean, the best example that we can talk about in more depth was the the OCM mandate, right? This was an agency that was created to make sure forklifts beep when they back up, not for a medical procedure on a 100 million Americans. And that's what they were trying to do. And I think in their haste, honestly, to to undo all of the successes of President Trump and his administration. On day one, they signed all these executive orders, whether it was related to border security or, you know, energy independence and the consequences have been disastrous. And so, as you know, the states created the federal government to be a government of limited powers. And it's up to the states now to push back. And of course, that designed by the founders was genius because they knew that if you spread out power through checks and balances separation of powers, federalism, you would prevent any one branch or agency or person from ever becoming too powerful to protect individual liberty. And that's never been more on the line than it is right now, which is why, you know, here in Missouri, we've we've taken the lead on a lot of these lawsuits.
Matt Whitaker [00:02:04] Yeah. And how quickly we forget I when I sent you the list of things I wanted to talk about, I had just the OSHA mandate, you know, obviously was another area where you fought so hard and were successful. What do you take the learning from that case and then apply it to the next case? Or is each one of these a creative extension by the Biden administration to try to go beyond the law as it's written to make it what they want it to be?
Eric Schmitt [00:02:38] Yeah, I think that's the general principle that applies in most of these cases. And you know that they're trying to fit an elephant in a mouse hole, right? And that's kind of what the argument was with those with those vaccine mandate cases. And we were successful. And and you know, the practical implications of that part of Missouri was the first state to file, and one of the plaintiffs with our state was a manufacturer of trailers that you know you'll have on the back of a landscaping truck in mid Missouri. Had one hundred and sixty employees. You know, they got supply chain issues. As it is, you had their long on tires because they don't know if they're going to run out of those. They're short on some of the smaller equipment that they need to finish it. If they run out of either one, they're out of business. They knew that there were just a certain number of people that were part of the work force that had decided they weren't going to get vaccinated, right? They were making their own decision. They were going to be out of business, like literally out of business. And so in addition to the legal issues of them not having the authority to do it, it would have just exacerbated our supply chain issues, the same with the trucking industry. And so those general principles about, you know, trying to move an agenda without actually having the article one branch Congress ever say yes to something is a recurring theme. Now you'll also see, I think this is a playbook that they're going to use over and over. You notice they're not calling it climate change anymore. They're calling it a climate emergency. This is all meant to kind of empower the EPA or transportation to move this radical Green New Deal administratively without people ever having to vote on it. So we filed lawsuits as relates to the social costs of greenhouse gases rule that they've got out there, certainly on the Keystone XL pipeline, on the federal, you know, the leasing on federal lands. I mean, we've been in the mix on all these and this is a core issue, right? The energy independence you President Trump brought us energy dominance and we can export that to our friends and allies across the across the globe. So the fronts are. I mean, one of the things you learn as an AG is that there are so many fronts to fight on. You see the full landscape of how the left is trying to fundamentally change this country. And we're not having I've said this, you know, on on the Senate campaign trail, too, that we're not having fundament, we're not having traditional political debates in this country anymore about tax rates and entitlement reform. The left is a couple of votes away from adding states to the union. Packing the Supreme Court, federalizing our elections, you know, fundamentally changing this country forever, they're playing for keeps and so I think it's important.
Matt Whitaker [00:05:06] Fight back now. You're absolutely right and it is their agenda. Like you said, with just a few votes would be so radical, so transformative and almost impossible to recover from. And I really I can't tell you how much sort of everywhere I go in the country and oftentimes I'm running into you, whether it's, you know, down at the border on the Rio Grande River or other places. But you've just been so active in making sure that this administration can implement this radical agenda. But you're right, there are so many fronts with which they're attempting to expand government without any kind of political mandate or political power to implement this. But I think they believe and they probably know they see what you see as you're talking to ordinary people in in, you know, places in Missouri that most have never heard of, you know, with his Cape Girardeau or Joplin or, you know, so Kirksville, where my mom went to college, you know, all those places.
Eric Schmitt [00:06:15] That's right. That's where I went undergrad. I think I did it. Yeah, I know well. And if the weather in Kirksville is a lot like Iowa in that, it's just really it's cold and windy.
Matt Whitaker [00:06:24] Well, you know, I don't admit this often, but my mom and dad from Kirkuk, Iowa, which is about as close to Missouri as you can get without actually being in Missouri. But anyway, that's why I'm a Cardinals fan, too. So I love it. Yes. But you know, I'm sure that you see the American people don't want this big city agenda. They don't want rising crime rates. And unfortunately, in Missouri, you kind of have a tale of of two Americas, which is you have St. Louis and Kansas City, which have seen the violent crime spikes that have, you know, suffered from these, you know, city officials that that don't want to put bad guys in jail that want to release them, you know, on bond and let them back in the community and and keep your fingers crossed that they don't re-offend or commit another crime and hurt more people. But you know. But you also see, like small town where these these employers that you, you mentioned are affected by the mandates from Washington, D.C. and and they didn't vote for it. They don't want it in. So how, you know, talk a little bit about as you get around the country will come back to some of the stuff on my list, like mask mandates and Title 42 litigation. But you know, since you mentioned it, talk about what ordinary citizens you know, our fellow citizens, your fellow citizens of Missouri, you know, what are the what's on their mind? What do they care about? What do they hope that they start seeing from Washington, D.C.?
Eric Schmitt [00:07:47] Well, I think on the, you know, the tip of the tongue, you've got a lot of these economic issues that, you know, whether it's paying at the pump or the price of milk or groceries or everything's just become so much more expensive. And if you're on a fixed income or you're you're a hardworking, you know, middle class Missouri and this is tough, that is like a it's not a it's not a silent tax increase. It is I mean, they're paying 10 18 percent more. If you buy a used car, you're paying 40 percent more than you were just a couple of years ago. And so I think those costs certainly have affected people and their purchasing power. And again, under President Trump that administration, we saw record wage growth across all demographics. And that's what happens when you have economic policies that work for the American people. People have more opportunity and it doesn't matter what zip code you're from or what race you are, what religion you are, people can succeed in. That American dream is now being blocked by this big government agenda. And I think, you know, sort of more culturally, people want America back. They want their country back. They don't like the idea that their kids are being told to despise America in the classroom or they're being taught these ridiculous things, you know, in kindergarten or that they're being forced to wear a mask all day long. Or you know that the federal government is trying to dictate if you're going to decide to take a vaccine or not, they they feel like this country is headed down a different path. And I think one of the reasons why this administration is pushing so aggressively and even on the border issues is they know a reckoning is coming in November. I think a reckoning is coming with the American people. The Democrats have gotten so extreme in their policies, it's just unrecognizable to whatever that party looked like 30 40 years ago. It doesn't look the same in Republicans. I think conservatives are hopefully providing an alternative that where we have more opportunity, a freedom agenda, a liberty agenda so that, you know, families can pursue the American dream in. And so anyway, that's what you hear a lot, a lot of frustration from what's happening from Washington, D.C. and they really want people who are going to fight back fighters to go to D.C. to really save America.
Matt Whitaker [00:09:55] Yeah. And I think that's what they liked about Donald Trump as well. He. Every day, you know, he was he was in the fight and he was battling against these folks that want to implement this agenda. You know, I think one of the things that I'm sure you hear a lot about is the southern border and it's how it's broken. And and now the Biden administration wants to roll back the Title 42 regulations. And I know that you have filed a lawsuit together with several other states. Won't you tell me a little bit about that and kind of where it currently is postured and in how how we should expect it to progress?
Eric Schmitt [00:10:35] Yeah. So I think we've seen since Biden took office and again rolled back the successful border security measures that President Trump had in place. We've seen waves and waves of illegal immigration. What we're about to see if he's successful in pulling back Title 42 is a Sunni army of illegal immigration. Many estimates put the number of expulsions or the percentage of expulsions right now at the border at over 50 percent because of Title 42, which is essentially a because of some of the risks of people coming over. We don't know where they're from. We can send you back. And so if you as well, we don't assume we know 70000 people a day are coming across illegally that we know of. That number is going to double. That's 500000 a week. And by the way, if you extrapolate the number that we've seen already with what we could see over a four year period, that could be 30 million people here illegally. And Biden's, you know that four years, that's like the state of Texas. That's like five Missouri's OK of people who've come here illegally. I mean, this is nuts. So anyway, we filed a lawsuit on Title 42, that's one piece of it. We've also with Texas. So we joined with Arizona and Louisiana on that Lowe's lawsuit. Other states have joined. We filed the motion for a preliminary injunction late last week, so that's going to be moving forward. Missouri and Texas filed the Remain in Mexico lawsuit, which was another successful Trump era measure, which basically said if you're seeking asylum, even though nine out of 10 of those are bogus. Mexico is going to be the waiting room. Why is that important? It's because the cartels who, by the way, are running the show right now, as you and I saw at the border just a couple of months ago. It's an incentive if they can bring the people across the border and then they're released into the interior of the United States waiting for their asylum hearing, that's a big incentive for them to bring more and more people here. That's what we've seen. So what President Trump had, which was fighting to get reinstated, is Mexico's the waiting room. While you're waiting for your hearing, Missouri and Texas have also filed a third lawsuit, which is to finish the border law border wall. Congress has appropriated millions of dollars to do it. Biden refused to spend it on that. In fact, he's paying contractors to not do the work while the materials lay on the ground. It's nuts. So I think you take those three things in the aggregate. That's a really effective policy preference that President Trump had that was working Biden's pull. It all pulled it all the way or trying to pull it all the way. And then we've got what we've got, which is, you know, more crime, more human trafficking, more fentanyl that's coming across the border. It's the leading cause of death now for Americans 18 to 45. It's affecting communities all across the country. I've been saying for months that every state's a border state, which is why Missouri is so involved in this, because that kind of illegal activity makes its way to Des Moines and St. Louis and Keokuk and Kirksville. And so we all got to fight back on this together.
Matt Whitaker [00:13:28] You know, it's so right. I think it's really, you know, extraordinary your leadership and your willingness to step up and to push back because, you know, having served the Trump administration, you know, all those policies you mentioned, you know, we we considered, how can we get the border into control because it was a complete mess when we took over? And, you know, we came up with these cars, you know, it was that was the public charge doctrine, whether it was remain in Mexico, all the policies that we finally got this thing under control, that we were giving the tools to the Border Protection folks that they needed to administer. And then obviously, with the pandemic Title 42 was enabled and was allowed them to quickly remove people, you know, encountered at the border and send them back. And you know, it's just the UN did every single one of these policies to the detriment. I mean, obviously, you could have predicted this is as easily as any law of physics that this would. You would have an explosion of illegal immigration. So thank you for doing that. As I was preparing for today, I wanted to. I think you did something extraordinary as attorney general that I think I just want to say thank you and I want to understand a little bit more. But this is this whole idea of this, you know, the sexual assault kit backlog. You cleared it out. You had over 3000. I think it is kits that were ultimately tested. So just tell us just a little bit about that, because I thought that was a smart plan and leadership by you as attorney general.
Eric Schmitt [00:15:07] Yeah, look, you know, and your leadership as attorney general, you know, one of the most important jobs we have as ags it, whether it's a state or, you know, clearly at the federal level too is fighting for victims and for those, you know, sexual assault victims who've had the courage to come forward. We wanted to honor that courage by making sure a sexual assault kit didn't sit on a shelf. In some cases, for decades, going untested. So the first thing we did was we went around and did an inventory and found thousands and thousands and thousands of these kids on shelves in Missouri is not alone. This is true everywhere, but it was something as a husband and as a father, you know, of two daughters. This is just something that I think is is very important. And so, you know, we're clearing that backlog. We essentially created that inventory, created a tracking system, had legislation to make sure this never happens again to have a central repository. We actually use private labs for the testing, so we didn't inundate the current kids that are being tested by the Missouri State Highway Patrol. That was, you know, well thought out so that we made sure that even the current cases are being tested at the same time. And then ultimately sent in the lab and come back. And we've gotten a number of CODIS hits already. We've referred those to local law enforcement. We're working with those local law enforcement agencies and prosecutors to bring people to justice. So our safe kit initiative is something that I'm very proud of and I think is a model for other states to look to to make sure that, you know, they have some solutions to this problem, too.
Matt Whitaker [00:16:33] And it's so important to, you know, those victims of those crimes deserve justice. And so when you can deliver that kind of justice and identify the perpetrator and prosecute them and support, you know, the local law enforcement and obviously this important mission, I think that's I just I thought that was extraordinary as I was preparing for it.
Eric Schmitt [00:16:53] Well, thanks for bringing that up because, you know, it's one of those things that we're proud of. And we we we do some press conferences to mark the progress, but sometimes it doesn't get it doesn't get talked a lot about. So I appreciate you bringing it up.
Matt Whitaker [00:17:06] Now a couple of other topics that I just wanted to talk about. I think a lot of folks that are watching this and listening to this show this week, our concern about our nation's schools and especially what's being taught, you know, it seems like every topic, whether it's math or social studies, is bringing in the, you know, woke agenda the, you know, the groups that are trying to indoctrinate our children into all sorts of nonsense. And you know, I think a lot of people were focused on the whole Florida bill that, you know, sort of said you can't teach, you know, essentially sex education to, you know, third graders and everybody lost their minds. When I say everybody, I mean every on the left because most of us were like, why were they doing that in the first place? Right? Yeah. But you know, I know that you've had an initiative addressing some of this school curriculum craziness. And I just wanted to give you a chance to explain to our listeners and viewers how you've approached that and what you found.
Eric Schmitt [00:18:11] Yeah, I mean, this is really an effort just to get back to the basics, right? Let's let's teach our kids, you know, reading, writing, math, science as opposed to this woke indoctrination that has made its way into into school districts across Missouri and across the country that you might not expect. You know, our first entry into this really are one of the first was in Springfield, Missouri. In Southwest Missouri, a whistleblower came forward with these training materials for staff and for teachers and administrators that included things like the oppression matrix and the pyramid of white supremacy that included, by the way, that if you thought, if you believed in colorblindness, that people should be judged on the content of their character, not the color of their skin that was covert white supremacy. So is Make America great again. By the way, the phrase was, it's this stuff is crazy. And by the way, the idea that this is just a graduate level course, I mean, you think the Left has finally abandoned that lie, but it's made its way into the classroom? No doubt. But if you're training everybody who works in the school to have that mindset, to divide people by oppressor and oppressed you, that is the very divisive. And you know, if you're if you're a hammer, everything's a nail, right? And I think that is the agenda here is to really divide and to untether this country from our, you know, what we believe in, which is that everybody is born with certain rights and everybody ought to be able to pursue happiness. And that no matter your race or religion, you should have the opportunity to succeed. And if you can create this divisiveness, that's the goal in there. You know, they're making their way across Missouri and across the country with this ideology. And by the way, when parents during the lockdowns were figuring so anyway, we sued Springfield Public School District to basically say they were denying our records request. So we're starting to get a bunch of different records now from a. Across the state, as we've opened up this portal, things called the the gender unicorn and the gender bred person, you know, like instead of the gender. I mean, this stuff is crazy and it's meant for young kids and so on. Anyway, CRT 16 19 project, it's in the classroom and it's they can't deny it anymore. So we're really trying to hold folks accountable. And this was on top of us suing a lot of school districts. 45 of them think it was the only A.G. that sued almost 50 school districts in their state for the mask mandates because they don't work. They're not about, you know, science or data. It's about power and control. So we've been very aggressive. And by the way, when parents figure this stuff out when their kids were home, guess what they did? They started showing the school board meetings. And then what happened? The National School Board Association went to the Attorney General's Office and then sought to investigate these parents as domestic terrorists under the Patriot Act. And so you don't think it matters what administrations in charge? You did a great job as Attorney General Merrick Garland, on the other hand, is weaponizing the FBI to investigate parents because they care enough about their kids education to show up. This is crazy. So we're suing the. By the way, we're suing the federal government for release of those documents. Do we want to know who was involved? We're suing the Missouri School Board Association to figure out what they knew when they knew it. We're not going away on this because the parents deserve answers. They deserve transparency when it comes to curriculum, and we just got to put a stop to this stuff.
Matt Whitaker [00:21:25] Yeah. And I have my two thoughts on that is one is, you know, parents engagement is needed now more than ever in their education because of these exact, you know, sort of insidious indoctrination that's going on in our schools. And it's a shame because it just shouldn't be like this. And this this Marxist, you know, critical theory approach is done for one thing, and that is you're to your point to divide us upon, you know, sort of our external indicators instead of our internal, you know, character and the type of people we are. You know, despite, you know, sort of all this nonsense that the left keeps trying to pile on the mask mandate. You know, for me, I went to Easter Sunday church service and they had a sign that essentially said, you know, you can wear a mask or not wear a mask, but just don't bother anybody about whether they're wearing a mask or not. And I just thought to myself, you know, not only is that the right approach if someone wants to wear a mask? Great wear a mask. I might wear a mask. And you don't like wear one that actually works. Not that's like, you know, and and and and the other thing, Erick, that's so frustrating for me is is like I. I see advertisements and I see people like with paper straws and biodegradable straws. And I just think, how many masks do I see laying on the street every day? Just discarded and garbage. I mean, we've created more pollution with these masks that don't work, that provide, you know, no real benefit for anybody wearing them. I just it's it's so these people are reflexively believing this stuff, and it's sad that there's nobody of, you know, kind of honesty and and goodwill at the federal government that can just tell the truth and to say that, you know, it's all nonsense.
Eric Schmitt [00:23:16] Well, and they're never going to let it go. They really aren't. I mean, you're already hearing. Fauci, by the way, admitted that the lockdowns were to force people to get vaccinated. Think about that the government was restricting your movement and access and, by the way, livelihoods because they had a belief that you should be forced to get a vaccine or not. I mean, this covered authoritarianism deserves to be on the ash heap of history, which is one of the reasons why I've been so aggressive about this. I just think it's a it's a real threat to who we are as a as a people. We've been the freest country in the history of the world. People can make these decisions themselves, not government. And to your point. Look, if you want to get quadruple facts and put 10 masks on your face and jog around a park outside all day long, knock yourself out. You know this is America. But don't try to have the government compel everybody to do this stuff because it's ineffective and it's a one big virtue signal. Let's just be honest about this. And people have had enough of it.
Matt Whitaker [00:24:11] Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. So is the top law enforcement officer in Missouri. I know that you feel strongly about your support of law enforcement, that you are, you know, constantly, you know, a defender and supporter of the men and women of law enforcement. Just want to give you a minute to sort of talk about kind of how strong that relationship you have with them is and just how, you know, kind of you look for opportunities to support them in their mission.
Eric Schmitt [00:24:39] Yeah. I mean, one of the things I've done as attorney general is we started something called the back of Blue Ward, where we'll go around the state and honor the men and women of law enforcement have done big things like, you know, literally save people going above and beyond the call of duty, save people's lives and, you know, endanger their own lives in the process. And little things like. You know, sponsoring a like a lemonade stand. These neighbor, kids, neighborhood kids were having for a great cause. I mean, there's so many great things that these law enforcement officers do every day. We wanted to make sure we recognize it and then also just standing up to this kind of defund the police movement, which you mentioned earlier. St. Louis and Kansas City, their mayors are actively trying to defund police departments. And so we've been very aggressive in pushing back. We've filed briefs in cases to stop that. And in St. Louis, you know, you've got a mayor that's trying to take money out of their budget. And then also we actually have this is kind of a weird vignette, but we had a case where the city of St. Louis owed the state money five million bucks. And I wrote, I didn't do a press conference on this. I didn't do anything. I wrote quietly to the mayor said, Look, if you use the five million to hire more police officers because you're 200 short now, anyway, they're going to see a rash of really keep the money for that purpose. She held a press conference and rejected it and wanted it used for like, you know, some kind of pet project that was just nuts. And so that's what we're dealing with. You know, you have people who who respect what they do want to support them and you have people who are trying to tear them down. And I think it's important for people in these positions to make sure that they tell the men and women of law enforcement and the public how much they're appreciated.
Matt Whitaker [00:26:10] Yeah, well, that's fantastic. And I share your support and, you know, unwavering defense of law enforcement and the important mission they have in the limited time that we have left. You know, you're running for the United States Senate in Missouri. Tell me a little bit about that campaign. And then also, I want you to make sure to mention where people can learn more about you, your campaign and all the good work you're doing.
Eric Schmitt [00:26:36] Yeah, look, this is a very important race. It's a 50 50 Senate right now, and so Missouri is on that map. And there's just no scenario where we take control of the Senate without winning Missouri. And I think we're in the best position to do it. Haven't won statewide a couple of times. People know that, you know, I'm a conservative fighter who's not going to back down and willing to, you know, when President Trump was in office, as you know, there was no more ardent defender of his policies that brought us that unprecedented economic success to energy independence, secure border. And then now, with Biden in office, we're taking a blowtorch this radical agenda, and I think that's what people want right now. I think that's indicative of the support we've gotten. You know, we're ahead in the polls. Our fundraising numbers are great, all those sort of things that allow you to get your message out. We're doing. And just, you know, want to help save America. I think you need reinforcements in Washington right now, and I think we're in a good spot. You know, people want to learn more about the campaign. Go to Schmidt for Senate seats and fight for Senate or I'm on the Twitter machine and the Facebooks and all that stuff, too. So. But yeah, things are going well and our, you know, our primary is in August and the generals in November. It's all hands on deck because, you know, you've got a hold Missouri. Then you got, you know, seats like Arizona and Nevada and Georgia and Pennsylvania. And although I think it's going to be historically a good year, that's more reflected in the house. In just pure numbers, these Senate races are always, you know, a little bit more challenging. But I think we're in the best position to go do that and I'm excited about it.
Matt Whitaker [00:28:07] Good. Well, I agree with you. And one thing I want to underline and highlight that you just said is in the Trump administration and I was there, I served in it. There was no better warrior for, you know, protecting and defending and supporting our agenda than Eric Schmidt, the attorney general in Missouri. I could always rely on you for to be a partner and you were just your great public servant. So I thank you for being with us today on liberty and justice. All of my listeners and followers can always see us. Every Friday, we premiere on C-PAC now and then any podcast channel or on Rumble or of course, everything I'm doing is on Whitaker Dot TV. Eric, great to see you, my friend. Thanks for joining us.
Eric Schmitt [00:28:54] Hey, thanks for your service, first of all, Matt, and thanks for having me on.
Matt Whitaker [00:28:57] All right. Thank you, my friend.
