Dear Everybody:
The big news today, is unsurprisingly, the faceplant by the GOP yesterday at the Jack Smith hearing:
–Everything about it has gone viral, the headlines are saying things like “fatal blunder” and “national laughingstock,” and Aaron Rupar, who usually only posts video clips of under a minute, has put up the entire eleven minutes of the debacle up on the internet for people to watch over and over. If you want, you can watch it here:
–Some people are pointing out that there were other people involved in this mess-up. Senator Kennedy held up the poster board for Senator Schmitt, and the expression on Katie Britt’s face clearly showed that she had thought this was going to be a gotcha moment for Smith.
–Cory Booker excoriated Schmitt for his attack on Smith, calling the hearing “a farce” and expressing disbelief that a senator would falsely accuse a witness in real time, based on a mix-up over basketball teams. He called it an extraordinary and unacceptable display.
–Jamie Raskin: “Look, nobody’s ever heard of Senator Schmitt before and nobody’s gonna ever hear of him again. He’s basically disgraced himself and identified himself with this little stunt…and he doesn’t even understand how much he’s utterly humiliated himself in the eyes of the country.”
–Not only are dozens of people posting videos of the game that they shot with their phones, all of which show Jack Smith sitting in the stands in seat I109, but he was there with an escort of US Marshals, all of whom could be called to testify that yes, he was indeed there and not in Atlanta cooking up something nefarious with Fani Willis.
And the internet is having a heyday with this:
–Allison Gill: “Dead on balls accurate!”
–Mich Again: “Best face plant that I’ve seen in a long, long time.”
–HereSince 01: “Once again, the idiot repugs brazenly stepped on a rake as they plowed forward with an attack based on the dumbest possible assumption.”
–Helen Kennedy: “What’s fun about this whole contretemps and why it’s worth watching again is how smirky Schmitt starts out–this is going to be his big moment–and how honest a puzzled Smith comes off, and how sharp Klobuchar was to quickly figure out the basic mistake. And then how pissy Schmitt gets at her.”
–Jon Danziger: “You know, it’s actually kind of thrilling, watching someone commit career suicide in just a couple of minutes.’
–juell1: Can anyone remember a Republican-led hearing that wasn’t disastrous?”
–Ron Filipkowski: “Tomorrow Eric Schmitt will present proof that Trump never met Jeffrey Epstein.”
Some people focused on the sports angle:
–People are reminding us that Amy Klobuchar’s dad was a sports journalist, which “may explain her utter contempt for Schmitt mistaking the Hawks and Hawkeyes.”
–Ben Collins: “Gobsmacked by the elite levels of not knowing ball in the Senate today, thinking an NBA team is called the Hawkeyes, then refusing to Google it, then accusing a guy of treason because you didn’t know the Iowa Lady Hawkeyes aren’t in the NBA. Somehow I don’t trust these people to save Girls’ Sports.”
–Schmitt: “It was the only NBA or NCAA men’s game going on at that time in Atlanta.” Jen: Psaki: “The Republican Party has spent the last three years claiming to be the ultimate defender of women’s sports, and they didn’t even bother to check whether there were any women’s games going on that Smith might have attended.”
Others focused on Katie Britt’s reaction to the realization that Schmitt had screwed up:
–Katie Britt looked absolutely stunned that it didn’t work. Her mouth fell open and stayed that way as the whole scheme unraveled.
–Jessiah Eberlis: “LMAOOO. Her look of UTTER HORROR as she watches MAGA Senator Eric Schmitt end his career in a most humiliating fashion.”
–Dreadful: “Wow, that closeup is a scream…what this tells me: the whole Republican Party had pinned all their hopes on this ridiculously flimsy conspiracy theory. They really expected it to work. Schmitt expected to be able to follow through with the perjury charge thing tomorrow. So did Britt, clearly, because her dismay is plain as she listens to the conspiracy theory fall apart in real time.”
–Jess Piper: “When you realize the Chevy BelAir wasn’t offered with a 327 engine and a four-barrel carburetor until 1964.”
–Allison Gill: “Dead on balls accurate!” (Note: If you don’t get the reference, it’s from the movie MY COUSIN VINNY, the moment when the prosecution’s entire case falls apart.)
And still others focused on the flaws in the conspiracy theory part:
–Jane: “Schmitt did not explain how attending a basketball game in Atlanta would be evidence of Smith cahootsing with DA Willis.”
–Jane DeVries: “So Schmitt’s ‘gotcha’ was Smith went to a game in Atlanta so therefore he met with Fani Willis because she lives there? That leap is what was supposed to be evidence??? These people really are idiots.”
–Gayer Than Thou: “Would it surprise you, sir, to learn that we have proof that people who are not you texted about someone getting seats for something?”
–Luther Blissett: “I have a question. Where did Schmitt get their text messages from?”
And over on the right?
–Schmitt continued to brazen out his screw-up, saying, “I presented him with text messages about his wanting to meet with people.” And “I was just asking questions.” Even when a reporter asked, “But weren’t you trying to catch him in a gotcha” he persisted in insisting he was only asking questions. “I don’t know if Jack Smith’s lying or not. It was the only game–Atlanta was the only NBA game or men’s college basketball game that night at 7:30.”
–He also said, as if this was a good argument, “Who knew Jack Smith was a Caitlin Clark fan?”
–When NBC asked him, “Do you still believe Jack Smith perjured himself?” Schmitt said, “We’ll find out,” and, according to Mediaite, he continued to refuse to concede he’d made an error even after being told by a reporter that there was footage of Smith at the Iowa-Maryland game.”
–Meidas Touch: “Obviously not you.”
–Ron Filipkowski: “Who knew Eric Schmitt was an incompetent moron? Oh, we all did.”
–Over on Charlie Kirk’s show, the hosts are pretending Schmitt owned Smith with his embarrassingly botched gotcha. Host: “You caught him in this NBA game in Atlanta.” Schmitt: “Yeah.” There’s no mention that Schmitt had all his facts wrong.
–Host: “Dang! So you had texts from Smith’s team confirming he was going to a Hawks game, and he sat there acting dumbfounded?” (He was dumbfounded. He had no idea what Schmitt was talking about.)
–No, he didn’t have texts confirming that. That’s why he was refusing to show the texts, which somebody managed to get a screen grab of. They said, “Hey man, is 109 Row 1 reserved for Jack?” and “Damn, thank you for asking. But we are good. Ask Harbach.” And “He is already down here. Thanks.” No mention of Hawks or Atlanta or anything.
–Ross A. Isaacs: “How is this text chain supposed to prove Smith was in Atlanta in the first place? All it talks about is a seat reservation at an unnamed game.”
–Public Record Sourcerer: “Kicker: It does not prove it, it proves it was not. The relevant stadium has a different seat LETTERING system.”
–Right-wing Benny Johnson posted: “Senator Eric Schmitt just CAUGHT Jack Smith perjuring himself on the stand in his testimony. Jack Smith denied having any contact with Fani Willis and denied going to a NBA game in Atlanta. Then Eric Schmitt pulled out the receipts. ‘What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a Warrior Hawks game the day after Willis and Wade announced their affair? I don’t think you know that we have this stuff. I’ll give you a second to process it.’ Jack Smith is stunned.”
–Hannity crowd, “Schmitt put Jack Smith on the spot.”
–MeidasTouch: “These people are utterly shameless.”
–It’s kind of fascinating to watch the right wing do their twisting of the facts and creating their own warped reality in real time.
–Jen Psaki: (On the MAGA shows and podcasters) “Almost all of them have deleted their posts praising Senator Schmitt for what was supposed to be this big gotcha moment.” (And Fox News’ Brit Hume delivered a brutal verdict on the senator’s fiasco.)
(Note: You may ask why I am devoting so much time to this, but it’s important that we keep talking about it, that we spread it to as many people as possible (especially in light of the spinning and lying the right-wing media is doing on the story), and that we do what the Republicans always do–flog the story mercilessly for days, if not weeks.) But also there continue to be consequences from the hearing:
–Republicans Senators are leaking that the fake info came straight from Trump and that he was the one who orchestrated the whole perjury trap. “I’m pretty sure the White House asked him to do it, and probably the White House provided the material.,” a top Senator told Raw Story.
–Senator Eric Schmitt’s home state newspaper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, trashed him for the “cringey” hearing. “Wrong teams, wrong league, wrong state…This is the man representing 6 million Missourians in the world’s greatest deliberative body. Sheesh.”
–The Republicans are still going after Jack Smith. Trump’s DOJ is investigating Smith right now on a referral from Jim Jordan, the agents who worked the classified documents case have all been fired, and this morning Senator Bill Hagerty sent a letter to the Board of Professional Responsibility of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, accusing Smith of “serious misconduct” in obtaining the senators’ phone records in the January 6 investigation. (This was obviously not thought up this morning–they had it all ready to go after what they thought was going to be a successful charge of perjury during the hearing.)
–Senator Marsha Blackburn sued Jack Smith today and accused him of mocking President Trump’s complexion in a codename chosen for his investigation: Arctic Frost.” (That’s apparently a kind of orange, though I didn’t know that.) The complaint cites no source for the claim and doesn’t say who picked the name, and the FBI has already opened Operation Arctic Frost before Smith was even appointed as special counsel, but they don’t care about any of that. They’re determined to get him somewhere, and they don’t care how.
–Outer Limits: “Arctic Frost is not a term I associate with ‘orange.’”
–The great part is that the points the Republicans wanted to make–that Jack Smith was partisan, that he unlawfully listened in on their phones, and that Smith was the guilty one, not Trump–were not covered AT ALL in the mainstream media. They spent all their time on the Easter Bunny, the Hawks vs. Hawkeyes mixup, and the shot of Katie Britt’s stricken face.
–Dean Blundell: “Six hours. That’s how long Senate Republicans had Jack Smith in the chair, and in six hours, not one of them landed a single fact. Not one. It was a disaster.”
–And in a good development, Josh Gerstein reports that, “After repeatedly delaying an appeal aimed at releasing Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump’s handling of classified documents, the 11th circuit moved the date for hearing the arguments in the case from January, 2027, to November 2, 2026. (Did their decision have anything to do with the disastrous hearing everybody just saw?)
In AI news:
–Trump signed another executive order today, this one changing the name of AI. “Now we’re calling it super. We’re using the word super. Because the other word is a fake word. It’s just not a good–it’s not an appropriate word. Whoever wins SI is going to win.”
–Question: “Who should be held accountable when the AI agents commit a crime?” Trump: “It’s not AI. That’s the other thing. We changed the name officially to SI. Like ‘sigh.’”
–Question: “Is the agreement binding in any way?” Trump: “I think it’s morally binding.” He said the AI leaders signed “almost a Constitution, in a way.”
–Question: “Tell us why the world shouldn’t be concerned about AI, why shouldn’t there be guardrails?” Trump: “Because we have people that love our country and love the world a lot.” Question: “It requires more than love, doesn’t it?” Trump: “No. It requires this.” (He points to his head) “And they’re the smartest people in the world.”
–Mike Johnson immediately obeyed, calling it “super intelligence” and AI companies “super intelligence providers.”
–Elon Musk, however, blew it, saying, “I think it’s worth highlighting the positive benefits of AI–SI, pardon me–I think by far the most likely outcome is major abundance.”
–Aaron Rupar: “Trump thinks that because he’s changed the name of AI, now all concerns expressed about it previously are a hoax. The illogic is breathtaking.”
–Sundae Gurl: “I miss when government ads just told us not to litter.”
–(Trump looks absolutely TERRIBLE, his face all puffy, his mouth drooping on one side again, his eyes nearly swollen shut, and his expression out of it.)
–Suzanne McCain: “He’s so swollen in the face. Not a good sign.”
In The Grift Goes On news:
–Huffington Post, on changing the name of AI to SI–“It’s unclear what benefit, if any, changing the name provides beyond stroking the President’s ego.”
–Well, now it turns out there might be more to it than just that. There’s new reporting that Trump stands to make lots of money from the change.
–In December, Trump said, “I always thought it should be SI, Supreme Intelligence, but I guess somewhere along the line, they decided on the word artificial and that’s okay with me.”
–Domain names with “.ai” are extremely expensive, but those with “.si” weren’t, until now. The domain name is (coincidentally?) the domain extension of Slovenia (which Melania and Barron Trump are both citizens of) and .si domain names suddenly became hot in June, suggesting that the inner circle might have been tipped off to the chain.
–Adam Cochran: “Since Trump’s announcement, .si domains have seen MILLIONS of dollars in turnover. Much of it going to domains that were registered in the last sixty days before the announcement. Using an executive order for the enrichment of yourself is not only unethical, but a breach of office. It’s a crime and an impeachable offense. The records are also very clear and logged. So I’m sure a future Congress will be looking at who bought these domains.”
–Jimmichigan: “Trump does absolutely nothing without a payoff. You would think the media would understand that by now.”
–Justbecause: “If there is a way to grift even more off the office he holds, he will find it. There is no low he won’t achieve because of his ego and greed.”
In Travels with Natalie news:
–There was a really interesting photo of Trump and Natalie Harp making the rounds this morning. She was smiling at him, and he was clearly yelling at her. (It wasn’t AI.)
In other news:
–The copilot of a flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv stabbed the captain, and the plane dropped a terrifying 14,000 feet in 30 seconds. The cabin crew managed to wrest control away from him, and landed the plane safely. It’s not yet known if it was a terrorist attack or a mental health issue.
–Riley Gaines, who had sued the NCAA because she had to compete against a trans woman (they tied for fifth), saying her civil rights had been violated, was thrown out. She had claimed that the NCAA received federal funds and therefore had violated Title IX by letting the trans athlete play. The judge said there was no evidence the NCAA had received federal funding.
–A secret recording caught Texas GOP candidate Ken Paxton trashing Trump’s convention and saying that the convention dropped their numbers.
In good news:
–NYC Mayor Mamdani is everything you could want in a politician. When Shirley Aldebol wrote and told him that the station roof at FDNY Engine 701, Ladder 53, on City Island was falling apart, he immediately sent her an email: “On it. We just allocated $750,000 to replace the roof at Engine 70.”
–The USA Singers: “Motherfucker is like Batman.”
–Also, Mamdani just announced, “The Talmud teaches that anyone who sustains one soul has sustained an entire world. For generations, Jewish New Yorkers have sustained our city. Today we are launching the first-ever municipal Strategy to Combat Antisemitism.”
Funniest comment of the day, from Buffalo2: “I emailed he Senator to make him feel better: Dear Senator Schmitt: Our state Eric Schmitt Booster Club has been abuzz on social media promoting you after one of our members told us you cornered Jack Smith by proving he was at the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996 and could have coordinated with pitcher Jason Schmidt who was on the Atlanta Braves that year! That’s pretty conclusive, huh? So what if Jack Smith had evidence that Pres. Trump did all sorts of dirty tricks, right? The only thing that counts is we get to highlight how great our GOP is right now, with Senators like you, Ron Johnson, and that Senator from Alabama Tommy Toblerone. We’re starting a social media campaign on your behalf saying that next you’re going to investigate who bombed Pearl Harbor and who was responsible for starting Hurricane Katrina. Can you send us some film clips we can use for our campaign?”
Best comment of the day, from Jack Smith: “History teaches that the rule of law is rarely destroyed all at once. It’s often weakened by attacks on the institutions and the public servants sworn to uphold it. Since January 2025, we have witnessed precisely such an effort.”
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis
