Tuesday was supposed to be a big day for Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt, a little-known first-term junior Senator whose main claim to fame thus far was the 25 lawsuits he filed against President Joe Biden’s administration in a span of 20 months while Missouri’s attorney general.
But congressional hearings have long been a place not to do actual legislating but to make a name for oneself, and Schmitt was going to take his opportunity on Tuesday, when he got to question former Special Counsel Jack Smith in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Earlier that morning a short news item — just 80 words — popped up on Axios. The headline:
“Sen. Eric Schmitt Is Drawing Buzz as a Possible Vance VP in 2028.”
The body of the story, in part, read:
“First-term Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) — who was a tough-on-crime state attorney general, and now is vice chair of the Joint Economic Committee — has grown close to Vice President Vance and is seen as a top prospect to become a potential 2028 running mate.
We hear the VP views Schmitt, 51, as trustworthy, intelligent, articulate and a deft political operator.”
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about how that glowing — and unsourced — story ended up where it did on the morning of this hearing, but I think it’s safe to assume it wasn’t a coincidence.
Hours later, Schmitt was in the room where it happened, joining his fellow Republican lawmakers in punishing Smith for pursuing charges around Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference and his handling of classified documents.
And the theatrics were amped up to 11. Sen. John Kennedy had already told Smith “You make me want to throw up in my mouth.” Sen. Ted Cruz proclaimed, “Javert from Les Mis would look at you with astonishment.” Sen. Darline Graham used her time to accuse Smith of bullying her late brother, Lindsey Graham.
Your taxpayer dollars at work, folks.
But anyway, this was all leading up to the big moment, when Schmitt was going to drop the smoking gun — alleged texts from someone in Smith’s office showing he was somewhere he shouldn’t have been, and about to do something he shouldn’t have done.
Except he wasn’t. Smith wasn’t in Atlanta in February 2024 for an Atlanta Hawks game. He wasn’t in Atlanta at all. Instead, he’d been at a women’s college basketball game between the University of Maryland and the University of Iowa. Apparently, Schmitt confused the Hawks with the Hawkeyes.
It was an implosion of delicious proportions for the left, but at a time when Republicans and Trump are drowning in a midterm election hellscape of their own making, it also exposed just how desperate MAGA was for a win — any win.
Before Schmitt could finish imploding, MAGA media had already posted to socials their congratulatory dunks on Smith, unaware that the moment they’d been promised hadn’t gone the way it was supposed to.
Fox’s Sean Hannity deleted his post wherein “Schmitt puts Jack Smith on the spot,” and Benny Johnson deleted his (which misspelled the senator’s name) saying “Schmidt just CAUGHT Jack Smith perjuring himself.”
The whole day, it seemed, from the Axios post in the morning, to the influencer posts in the afternoon, was designed to give the MAGA base some much-needed red meat amid a sea of bad poll numbers.
But it seems Republicans don’t have their priorities straight. They’ve given up on actual policy wins that could have helped stave off what may just be a blue monsoon in November, wins that were promised to voters two years ago. All they’ve got left are parlor tricks and subterfuge — and they can’t deliver on that, either.
It was a moment that was meant to go viral, and it did — but for all the wrong reasons.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.