Eric Schmitt was supposed to have a very good week.
The Missouri Republican had several TV appearances lined up in advance of Tuesday’s Senate hearing, apparently preparing to make the rounds and bask in what he expected would be a triumphant takedown of former special counsel Jack Smith.
Then the hearing happened.
Schmitt’s much-hyped “gotcha” moment collapsed almost immediately after he confused an Atlanta Hawks game with an Iowa Hawkeyes game.
Now, some of those scheduled TV appearances are being canceled.
One of them was C-SPAN’s Ceasefire, where Schmitt was supposed to appear Friday alongside Democratic Sen. Chris Coons.
Host Dasha Burns revealed that Schmitt pulled out the day after the hearing.
“Now, we should mention that Sen. Schmitt was supposed to appear on this program with Sen. [Chris] Coons, but he pulled out a day after that hearing,” Burns said.
That’s quite a change of plans for a senator who had apparently expected to spend the week talking about his confrontation with Smith.
Schmitt had tried to put Smith on the spot during Tuesday’s hearing by questioning him about a basketball game on Feb. 3, 2024.
The setup was supposed to be devastating.
There was just one problem. Schmitt had the wrong game.
He asked Smith whether he had attended an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks in Atlanta that night, apparently attempting to connect Smith to the broader controversy surrounding the Georgia investigation into Donald Trump.
Smith had attended a basketball game that evening.
But it wasn’t in Atlanta.
He was in College Park, Maryland, watching the Maryland Terrapins women’s team play the Iowa Hawkeyes, led by Caitlin Clark.
In other words, Schmitt had apparently confused the Atlanta Hawks with the Iowa Hawkeyes.
The supposed “gotcha” quickly became an embarrassment.
Instead of simply acknowledging the mix-up, Schmitt went into damage-control mode.
“Who knew Jack Smith was a Caitlin Clark fan?” he posted on X.
During an exchange with a reporter, Schmitt insisted there was nothing wrong with his questioning.
“We had information he was at a basketball game,” Schmitt said. “There was only one NBA game that night, at 7:30 tip-off, which is why I asked him if he was in Atlanta.”
“He answered the question. That’s what these hearings are for. You ask questions, you get answers.”
Schmitt also suggested Smith had perjured himself in the past and said he would accept Smith’s explanation that he had attended the Maryland-Iowa game.
But the senator faced another uncomfortable moment when TMZ D.C. reporter Charlie Cotton confronted him outside the Capitol.
Cotton asked Schmitt about getting the location wrong.
Schmitt refused to call it a mistake.
“I don’t think about it that way,” he said. “I asked him if he was at a basketball game that night. The only NBA game that was going on that night was in Atlanta. So, I asked him if he was there.”
Cotton pressed him, saying it looked like Schmitt had attempted a “gotcha” moment with Smith and then had the wrong game.
Schmitt doubled down.
“Well, he was at a basketball game,” he said. “I asked him if he was in Atlanta. He said, ‘No.’ He said he was at another game. That’s his answer, so it is what it is.”
Then Cotton asked the question everyone else was probably wondering:
“How did that mistake happen?”
Schmitt’s answer?
“It’s not a mistake!”
Sure.
And now the senator appears to be pulling back from the media victory lap that had been planned around his confrontation with Smith.
The senator has been mentioned as a potential running mate for JD Vance in 2028, and he clearly wanted his confrontation with Smith to be a showcase moment.
Instead, the moment turned into a humiliating self-own.
