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Eric Schmitt could have become Donald Trump’s attorney general pick after the November election — if he wanted the job — according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
Even before that, he had an offer to lead the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm. Almost any other first-term senator would jump at either opportunity. Schmitt passed on both … and has zero regrets.
The Missouri Republican doesn’t chair a full committee or serve on the Senate’s appropriations panel, yet he managed Trump’s spending-cuts bill on the floor and engaged in high-stakes negotiations over the president’s signature tax and spending cut law. In many ways, he’s a face of the party’s ascendant Trump wing.
It’s a surprising amount of sway for a rank-and-file senator who’s less than three years into his congressional career. But Schmitt is clearly earning clout in his unofficial role as MAGA liaison in his clubby chamber.
“I don’t have to fake it. I don’t have to go to some book and figure out the America First translation,” Schmitt told Semafor in an interview. “People can tell if you’re a phony or not.”
Although Trump is taking longer to reshape the Senate in his image than his quick conquering of the House GOP, Schmitt is helping things along alongside likeminded first-term Republicans like Bernie Moreno of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana — wielding personal relationships with Trump and Vice President JD Vance as effectively as a committee gavel.
Vance described Schmitt to Semafor as “one of the Trump administration’s most valuable allies on Capitol Hill. He’s trusted by the White House, respected by his Senate colleagues and he has an intuitive understanding of what Republican voters expect from their leaders.”
Schmitt won his first statewide office in 2016, as Trump burst onto the scene, and emerged in 2019 as a hard-charging Missouri attorney general. He earned Trump’s double “ERIC” Senate endorsement in 2022 (the other recipient was disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens), then easily won the general election.
That put him in line for a Cabinet post as Trump prepared to return to the White House. Instead of agreeing to lead Trump’s Justice Department, though, Schmitt told the president’s team: “I want to be a strong advocate for you in the Senate.”
“I think that was very well received. And that’s what we’re doing, and that’s what I wanted to do. I felt like this was the place for me,” Schmitt told Semafor in an interview.
And if another Cabinet position opens up soon? “I’m very comfortable in the Senate right now,” Schmitt replied.
Schmitt is cautious when it comes to promoting himself. His colleagues are not.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D, said Schmitt “has ‘leadership’ written all over him.” Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., who entered the Senate with Schmitt, said that “whatever he wants to achieve in this body, he will be able to — or the country.”
Yet Schmitt’s tenure in the Senate started off bumpy, with a failed bid to get on the Judiciary Committee. He eventually got there, though it took two years. With Trump in power, Schmitt helped deliver the $9 billion spending cuts package and landed a massive defense contract for Missouri to build new fighter jets.
He hasn’t quite prevailed yet in his push to change the Senate rules to speed Trump’s confirmations. And he wants another rescissions package, even if it makes Democrats less likely to embrace a bipartisan spending deal: “I think we should do more. I don’t think it undermines the appropriations process.”
Know More
Schmitt is easygoing inside the Capitol and a swaggering culture warrior outside of it.
He banged the drum on conservative media about former President Joe Biden’s cognitive condition and the Russia “hoax,” but also knew to speak directly to Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, before assuming leadership of Trump’s spending cut bill, which she opposed.
Despite their division on rescissions, she said he did a “good job, particularly for a new senator, to be the floor manager of such a complicated bill.”
James Braid, the White House’s legislative affairs director, said that because Schmitt is “on the leading edge of the populist-conservative synthesis” he was able to get a spending cuts package through a Senate which rejected a similar effort in the first term.
One Trump ally said that Schmitt is one of 10 GOP senators who really understands Trump’s politics. At the same time, Britt said that Schmitt “really respects the institution and people who may not be in lockstep with him.”
“I have deeply held beliefs, and I’m going to fight for those,” Schmitt said. “But that doesn’t mean you have to be, like, an asshole.”
The 6′6″ Schmitt has rejuvenated the aging Senate’s corps of intramural baseball players and also plays golf with Trump: “I play well enough where I got invited back.” He still listens to Rage Against the Machine, despite the band’s progressive leanings: “If I had to limit the bands that I liked to the ones who were politically aligned, I wouldn’t be able to listen to much.”
Few Senate delegations have changed more in the past few years than Missouri’s. Schmitt replaced long-time GOP hand Roy Blunt, who retired in 2022, and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., defeated Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in 2018.
Hawley and Schmitt are close in age and enjoy a good relationship but diverge stylistically. While Hawley bashed Senate Republicans’ Medicaid cuts this summer, Schmitt was in high-stakes meetings laboring to help pass Trump’s megabill.
Room for Disagreement
Schmitt’s rising-star status with MAGA hasn’t stopped him from forging real Democratic friendships, even if he’s not exactly the bipartisan dealmaker Blunt was.
He and Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., bonded over their experiences raising children with disabilities. They are shepherding several bills together and led a letter to Senate spending leaders about the importance of funding for kids with disabilities.
Still, Hassan said “we obviously have different feelings about policy related to it. It’s an interesting intersection.”
Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said that “I consider him a friend. But he’s tough politically.”
Burgess’s view
I was surprised in November to get a tip that Schmitt was pulling out of the Cabinet sweepstakes. It makes sense in retrospect: Schmitt wants to spend time with his kids while he can, and he’s already made a different kind of impact in the Senate and White House.
As an added bonus, he doesn’t have the headache of managing Republicans’ expectations on the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Schmitt’s betting that the party won’t revert to pre-Trump ideology after the president leaves office, putting himself in prime position if Vance takes Trump’s mantle. If Democrats can get it together and retake the White House and Congress in 2028, or if the GOP goes a different direction, that choice may put Schmitt in the wilderness.
But it’s hard to find fault with his political decision-making at this point, particularly the maneuver to avoid two challenging jobs while still developing a strong foothold in the party.
Notable
Trump went after Hawley over a stock trading bill, though they had a “good chat” afterward, according to The Hill.
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