Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO) is rarely one to mince words. He demonstrated that once again Sunday morning, as he joined George Stephanopoulos on ABC News' This Week and addressed the criticisms being levied at President Donald Trump and his administration over strikes taking out Venezuelan drug boats in the Caribbean.
Stephanopoulos opened the segment by questioning Trump's recent pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández and whether Schmitt supported it. Schmitt took issue with the implication that the pardon is somehow indicative of a soft-on-drugs stance by the president, highlighting the deadly serious nature of narcoterrorism and the administration's efforts to confront it — within the bounds of the Constitution.
.@SenEricSchmitt: Democrats "have such X-ray vision and clairvoyance that they know the intentions of narco-terrorists on boats, yet were so blind to see that they had a President for four years that was operating as a vegetable... Forgive me if I'm a little skeptical." 🔥 pic.twitter.com/fgyMRbrnel
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) December 7, 2025
"I'm not familiar with the facts or circumstances, but I think what's telling here is to try to imply that somehow President Trump is soft on drug smuggling is just ridiculous — it’s totally ridiculous. He’s provided border security like we’ve never seen before. And the fact is, these cartels now, because the southern border is closed, they’ve gone to the high seas.
"So President Trump is acting with his core Article II powers — no serious legal expert would doubt that the president has authority to blow narcoterrorists out of the water who are poisoning 100,000 Americans every year. If you watched the SEC championship game yesterday, the Big Ten championship game — combine those two stadiums with the number of people there — that’s how many people are dying each and every year from the poison that's coming from these narcoterrorists.
"So, the fact is, George, President Trump has been delegated the authority by Congress to designate terrorist organizations. He’s done that; he sent a letter to Congress saying he was gonna initiate these strikes. We’ve had regular briefings about it, including from Secretary of State Rubio, including from other high-ranking officials in the Department of Defense. He’s executing those."
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Schmitt then got to the heart of the issue with the Democrats' sudden, seeming superpower.
"And so now, what we have now are Democrats, who have such x-ray vision and clairvoyance that they know the intentions of narcoterrorists on boats, yet were so blind to see that they had a president for four years that was operating as a vegetable in Joe Biden. So, you know, forgive me if I’m a little skeptical that this isn't all about politics and trying to take out Secretary Hegseth. That’s what this whole thing has been about, George — they didn’t want him confirmed; they didn’t want to realist in place; they didn’t want a shift from their pet projects around the world and trying to build democracies in the sands of the Middle East by the barrel of a gun. We have core national interests at stake: the homeland and the Western Hemisphere, and the rise of China. That’s what this administration is focused on. The Democrats are just upset about that, and they try to create some controversy each and every week, and it goes nowhere."
When Stephanopoulos again tried to prod Schmitt about the pardon for Hernández, Schmitt swiftly pointed out the host's noted lack of pushback as to his previous guest (Democrat Rep. Adam Smith (WA-9)).
"Well, I'm curious about your pushback on that particular point. With your previous guest, 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.
"75 percent of Americans support us blowing narco terrorists out of the water in the Caribbean who are trying to poison Americans. There's no real legal debate about the ability to do that. Now, you could have a policy discussion about it, which now you see the Democrats pivoting from the second strike and the war crimes allegation to really what this whole thing is about. Should we do it -- be doing it in the first place?
"I have way more sympathy for my friends, my cousins, my neighbors, those people who've been poisoned by these narco terrorists, people who've been skinned alive by these cartels that they bring people to the United States than I do for these narco terrorists. I mean, that's just the reality of the situation. So, there's legal justification for it. He's doing it. We do have more of a focus on our interest now in the Western Hemisphere, and I'm thankful for that."
Is anyone's mind going to be changed by this exchange? Likely not. But it's a prime example of a Republican leader having learned not to simply accept the premise of agenda-driven questioning from the legacy media while also highlighting Democrats' hypocrisy.
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