A pro-Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) super PAC has launched an ad bashing Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt – one of Hartzler’s opponents in the Show Me State’s Republican U.S. Senate primary – for pushing China-friendly legislation while working as a state senator.
The video, released by the Secure Our Freedom Action Fund and viewable through this link, plays off of Schmitt’s own ad – where he hits baseballs in a field and outlines his agenda as a Senate candidate, stating he will “knock it out of the park for Missouri.”
Secure Our Freedom Action Fund – which is pro-Hartzler according to Open Secrets – uses some of the footage from Schmitt’s video in its ad and highlights his work as a member of the state senate, calling him an “All-Star for China.” Rather than Schmitt actually hitting the balls, it depicts him sticking out.
“Eric Schmitt claims: ‘I’ll knock it out of the park for Missouri.’ But Jeff City politician Eric Schmitt partnered with Democrats to help Communist China,” a narrator states, and an umpire subsequently declares “[s]trike one!”
“Writing a bill to use your tax dollars to fund a ‘China Hub’ in St. Louis,” the narrator continues, accompanied by a “Strike Two!” from the umpire.
The ad references a Breitbart News article from September of 2021 that chronicled Schmitt’s work as a state senator on China-friendly legislation, including his 2011 push to establish Aerotropolis in Missouri. The bill was nicknamed” ‘China Hub” and sought to create “a global cargo hub at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport which [Schmitt] believed would increase exports and foreign trade.”
As Breitbart News noted:
Schmitt, who even visited China in the hopes of getting the plan off the ground, said Chicago was “maxed out” for China’s needs, and Indianapolis and Cincinnati were cities that hope to edge out St. Louis in making a run for the huge China trade, the Webster-Kirkwood Times reported.
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He partnered with St. Louis Democrats to push the bill forward, one which required the passage of an economic incentives package with major tax breaks, including as much as $360 million in tax credits for developers to build warehouses and establish the international deals.
The TimesNewspaper reported that Former State Rep. Jeanne Kirkman (D) was critical of the plan at the time:
If this is such a great idea, why isn’t the free market taking care of it? This will be a big boondoggle if China doesn’t come along. It seems strange to me that we are jumping to play nice with the communists and will just look the other way at their history of human rights violations.
“China Hub” never materialized, despite Schmitt’s ardent efforts. Secure Our Freedom Action Fund’s ad also highlighted his support of legislation that allowed for Missouri farmland to be sold to foreign entities, calling it “[s]trike three!” for Schmitt, adding that he is “an All-Star for China,” but “striking out for Missouri.”
Weeks after he and others in the legislature voted to override then-Gov. Jay Nixon’s (D) veto of Senate Bill 9, the Hong Kong-based HW Group, previously known as the Shuanghui Group, purchased Smithfield Foods, which owned at least 40,000 acres of farmland in the Show Me State.
“These politicians push legislation to allow Missouri farmland to be sold to Chinese communist party-owned companies. It is disgusting,” former Gov. Eric Greitens, another one of Schmitt’s opponents in the race, told Breitbart News Saturday last year.
Schmitt’s previous work in the state senate continues to burdon him as he enters the home stretch of the Republican primary. Breitbart News recently published a report exposing his ties to far-left former state legislator Maria Chappelle-Nadal, who called for then-President Donald J. Trump’s assassination in 2017.
Chappelle-Nadal posted a picture of herself and Schmitt to her private Twitter account with the caption “7 years ago today. We are still moving mountains,” just months before he held a private fundraiser at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in March. Breitbart News reached out to Chappelle-Nadal, who said they “worked very well together” in the state senate, passing legislation that Democrats like and conservatives do not.
Of note, Schmitt was out of the state senate and serving as Missouri’s Treasurer when she called for Trump’s assassination. However, his association with the radical legislator, who also called for slave reparations in Missouri, and his previous record in the State Senate raise questions about whether he will uphold the America First values he claims to support in the U.S. Senate should he be elected.
The Super PAC has spent $198,000 “for” Hartzler and $163,189 “against” Schmitt, according to Open Secrets.
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