Sen. Eric Schmitt’s attempt to manufacture a devastating moment against former special counsel Jack Smith instead became a public humiliation, prompting Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin to predict that the Missouri Republican’s political career is effectively finished.

The embarrassment arrived just as Schmitt appeared to be enjoying a burst of flattering attention. Axios had published a buzzy piece portraying him as a Republican who had developed a close relationship with Vice President JD Vance.

According to that account, Vance considered Schmitt a “trustworthy, intelligent, articulate and deft political operator” who might become his vice presidential choice in 2028. That lofty political positioning proved remarkably short lived once Schmitt began questioning Smith.

Schmitt tried to catch Smith in a supposed contradiction by citing text messages and accusing the former special counsel of apparent perjury. His case depended on the claim that Smith had attended an Atlanta Hawks game in Georgia.

There was one rather spectacular problem. Schmitt had gotten the team, the city and even the level of basketball wrong, turning what was intended as a dramatic exposure into a deeply embarrassing self own.

Smith’s messages were actually about attending a University of Iowa women’s basketball game in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. He had gone to see the Iowa Hawkeyes, not the Atlanta Hawks.

Schmitt had suggested Smith was in Atlanta with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was prosecuting Donald Trump at the time. The evidence presented in the exchange did not support that assertion.

Raskin responded by delivering what amounted to a political obituary for Schmitt. The Maryland Democrat argued that the previously obscure Republican had disgraced himself on the same day he was supposedly emerging as a significant national figure.

“Look, nobody ever heard of Senator Schmitt before,” Raskin said on CNN. “And nobody’s gonna ever hear of him again.”

Raskin said Schmitt had tied himself to a stunt aimed at serving Trump, only to expose the weakness of his own questioning. “He’s basically disgraced himself and identified himself with this ridiculous little stunt where he thought he was going to perform some major service to Donald Trump,” he said.

Raskin described the questioning as “all about being the most obsequious sycophant you can be. And he proved that he was.” He also argued that Schmitt had failed to grasp the scale of his embarrassment.

“And he doesn’t even understand how much he’s utterly humiliated himself in the eyes of the country,” Raskin noted. Schmitt, however, continued trying to defend his assertion that Smith might really have been in Atlanta.

Schmitt claimed that the Hawks were the only NBA game taking place that night. But Smith had not attended an NBA game, and the Hawks game was not even the only professional basketball game happening that evening.

Some MAGA media figures nevertheless rushed to portray Schmitt’s questioning as proof that Smith and Willis had been colluding. The hosts of The Charlie Kirk Show pushed forward as if Schmitt had scored a major victory rather than confused two teams and two cities.

“Jack Smith is a total dirtbag, um, and you caught him out on this NBA game, too, by the way, in Atlanta,” Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet told Schmitt. Cohost Blake Neff nodded in agreement as Kolvet added, “It was a great moment, so good for you on that.”

Kolvet later retreated from that praise in a statement to the Daily Beast. “Do I stand by my comments about the Senator’s question about the Hawks game? No, not if it’s not true. Do I stand by comments that Jack Smith is a dirtbag? Yes.”

Other conservative commentators were also forced into cleanup mode. Benny Johnson, described as a serial plagiarist, and Fox News host Sean Hannity were caught deleting posts that had celebrated Schmitt’s questioning as a triumphant moment.

The episode left Schmitt with the opposite of the political breakthrough suggested by the earlier Axios attention. Instead of emerging as a deft operator and possible future running mate, he became the target of Raskin’s brutal prediction that the public would not hear from him again.