Racism, Jack Smith and the MAGA-fueled Schmitt-show

Man, sometimes the jokes just write themselves.

If you were watching any news at all since the afternoon of Sept. 29, you’ve been exposed to the overt comedy of self-embarassment, which starred Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt. In questioning former Justice Department Special Prosecutor Jack Smith in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Schmitt made himself look so stupid that he will probably never live it down, and it’s all because he didn’t fact-check his claim.

But it also shows how anti-Black racism finds its way almost everywhere because of geniuses like this. Let me explain.

Stage 1. Funny

In November 2022, Smith, who was appointed special counsel to oversee investigations into Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, wanted to probe into how Trump dealt with classified government documents during his first term. These items were recovered from his residence at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida – 13,000 files! The Justice Department, then headed by Obama-appointed Attorney General Merrick Garland, said that Trump was trying to cover something up and that things related to national security, including nuclear information, were in the documents.

Smith, doing his job, continues his investigations, and that includes the white supremacist riot and attempted coup of Jan. 6, 2021, in which Trump sent thousands of people to try to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election. Despite their caterwauling, Joe Biden won in both the popular vote and the Electoral College. But in July 2024, a judge, who was appointed by Trump in his first term, ruled that Smith's appointment was unconstitutional and dismissed the criminal case against Trump. After he won the 2024 election, all the charges against him were dropped.

Smith announced that he would dismiss any appeals to the Trump case but would continue to pursue charges against alleged co-conspirators. Smith resigned from the Justice Department in Jan. 2025. He was later called to testify before the Senate on his prosecution of Trump three times, including the debacle that happened on Tuesday.

Stage 2. Funnier

In 2023, Fulton County, Ga., prosecutor Fani Willis brought charges against Trump and 18 others related to allegations of him tampering with the 2020 election, saying that he attempted a racketeering scheme to overturn the Georgia results. If you’ll remember, Trump tried to nudge then-Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” so that Georgia’s critical 16 electoral votes would go to him, helping him win the election.

But one of the defendants in Willis’ case against Trump filed a motion to dismiss and disqualify her because of an alleged conflict of interest stemming from her personal relationship with lead prosecutor Nathan Wade. Despite a finding that no conflict was there, he left the case in order to move it forward. Still, in Dec. 2024, a Georgia appellate court ruled that Willis’ office be removed from the case, disqualifying them from it. The case was moved to a new prosecutor, who subsequently dropped the charges.

Trump and his MAGA cult began to rollick into a frenzy because they had found a tear in the prosecutorial fabric that could thwart attempts to put him in jail, where he has always belonged. That a Black woman was caught up in this was icing on the cake because, well, racism. Anytime Black people lose, they feel it’s a win for them. It’s also why they were desperate to ensure Kamala Harris did not win the 2024 election, because another Black president – a woman – would have been unbearable for them.

Stage 3. Funniest

On Feb. 3, 2024, the Iowa Hawkeyes played the Maryland Terrapins and beat them 93-85. Point guard Caitlin Clark dropped 38 points with 12 assists. Iowa moved to a record of 21-2 and 10-1 in the Big Ten conference.

Somehow, Schmitt’s brilliant staff, who saw “Hawks” on a text log, made a fatally erroneous assumption.

That same night, the Atlanta Hawks beat the Golden State Wariors 141-134. Stephen Curry dropped a season-high 60 points, but it wasn’t enough to hold off Trae Young, Onyeka Okongwu and Jalen Johnson, who rallied in overtime to beat the Warriors.

Stage 4. Stop, you’re killing me!

This all takes us back to Tuesday’s hearing in which Schmitt was in the hot seat. And since you’ve been reading enough, I’ll just show you video of the senator making a complete ass of himself. Note how Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar provides the receipts, leaving her colleague looking like Boo-Boo the Fool.

Now, this guy knew how stupid he looked and still stood ten toes down on it as if somehow he’d be vindicated. Later, he went on a podcast that is still called “The Charlie Kirk Show” and tried to play it off like he was right. You’ll have to search for that video yourself because I’m not platforming anything that bears that name. He said later that he asked Smith about being at a basketball game, not thinking there were other games than NBA games, particularly not women’s college basketball.

‘It’s getting hot in herre’ so take your white sheet off...

But does this mean that Schmitt is a racist? I’ll let you be the judge. He’s the one who invoked Fani Willis’ name, accusing Smith of colluding with her by saying he was in Atlanta, thinking he could prove it by showing that he was there for a Hawks game – an accusation which crashed and burned in his face. Apparently, Schmitt was so desperate to construct a narrative of illegal collusion involving a prominent Black female prosecutor that his staff skipped basic fact-checking.

The racial link isn’t the flub of facts; it’s that in targeting Willis for delegitimization based on the far right’s insidious way of weaving racialized tropes into everything they do, they fell flat on their faces this time.

Schmitt is a well-known MAGA politician, adamant in his opposition to the Affordable Care Act. He was part of an unsuccessful lawsuit to overturn it when he was Missouri’s attorney general. He is also an unabashed election denier, who has worked to get the 2020 election results overturned. And you need look no further than his Sept. 2025 speech at the National Conservatism Conference in which Schmitt outlined what he thinks an American is and who has a right to be here, and it for damn sure wasn’t anyone who looks like me.

“We Americans are the sons and daughters of the Christian pilgrims that poured out from Europe’s shores to baptize a new world in their ancient faith,” he said in the speech, where he also brags about “Manifest Destiny” and his own ancestors immigrating from Germany in the 1840s. “Our ancestors were driven here by destiny, possessed by urgent and fiery conviction, by burning belief, devoted to their cause and their God.”

I doubt that “we” included Fani Willis’ ancestors or anyone else whose family doesn’t descend from Western Europe. So it’s not a stretch to believe that he doesn’t think much of her for going after Trump and really resents that it was a Black woman who did it. When he brought it into his line of questioning for Smith, he thought it would be a three-point shot. But it was a fucking airball into the stands. The back row at that.

So, with Schmitt on his face, he must now deal with the ire of pretty much the whole media sphere calling him out for being such a prick – and an inaccurate one. But the media hasn’t really peeled back the covers to reveal the racist nature of his targeting of Smith. For him, though, it was “just asking questions,” nothing more.

I’ll leave you with this video of the Schmitt-show aftermath and him trying to act like nothing’s wrong.

---------------------------
Madison Gray is a New York City-based writer and editor whose work has appeared in multiple publications globally. Reach out to him at madison@starkravingmadison.com.