Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) got a dressing down on Monday morning for his performance over the weekend on ABC after he lashed out at "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos who put him on the spot about Donald Trump’s pardon of a cocaine kingpin.
Schmitt, the former attorney general of Missouri before being elected to the US Senate, was asked about the pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted of plotting to flood the US with cocaine. The Missouri lawmaker claimed he was in the dark about the president’s interference on the convicted drug dealer’s part.
That led the ABC host to shoot back, “What do you mean you're not familiar with the facts and circumstances of the pardon? It's been well-reported all across the country. He is the former president of Honduras. He was convicted of conspiring to bring in 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. Also guns and other materials. It's been front-page news across the country. Aren't you curious about that?”
Ducking the question, Schmitt snapped, “Well, I'm curious about your pushback on that particular point. With your previous guest [Democratic Sen Chris Coons], you had zero pushback because he is giving the Democrat talking points like you spew every single week, which is probably why your ratings are so bad. But to make the point, what I'm saying is that you're trying to divert here the attention from what the American people actually support.”
Before sharing the clip on MS NOW on Monday morning, “Morning Joe“ co-host Mika Brzezinski stated, “Republican Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri repeatedly dodged questions about whether he supported President Trump's pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez.”
After the clip ran, the disgusted MS NOW host bluntly stated, “Okay. The shamelessness is so painful. We also had a senator on our show last week who just didn't know enough about the pardon to talk about it. It's really, really, really pitiful at this point, because the hypocrisy of pardoning this individual while you have this potentially unlawful operation going after these narco terrorists in these little boats, we know who these people are in these boats in terms of the narco terrorism operation. They are not like the big fish in the operations. Not not even close.”
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