Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Tuesday’s episode of “The Ingraham Angle” that Democrats are driven by a desire for “absolute control” rather than genuine political debate, pointing to the party’s treatment of Elon Musk as evidence of a broader pattern he said threatens ordinary Americans.
Ingraham opened the exchange by asking why Musk has become such a target for Democrats if the party is confident in its own popularity. “Why is Elon Musk such a threat to their worldview?” she asked. “If they think they’re so popular and their policies are so great, Senator, why are they worried about Musk?”
Schmitt responded that Democrats “want to tear down success,” and argued that the party’s warnings about threats to democracy amount to projection. “[A]s it relates to Musk, I think you know the Democrats want to tear down success. That’s really what they are, and they talk about, you know, threats of democracy. Meanwhile, they’re willing to destroy democracy to save democracy. This is what fascism really is,” he said.
He traced the hostility toward Musk back to his involvement in the Department of Government Efficiency, which he said helped push through a rescissions package targeting U.S. Agency for International Development funding. “They were firebombing Tesla dealerships,” Schmitt said. “They’re post-American. They’re post-Western civilization at this point, Laura, and they want to tear down things that are great in this country.”
Schmitt said he believes persuasion may still be possible before the midterms, but that the contest now hinges largely on turnout.
“What the Democrats are willing to do with power is terrifying, and it won’t stop with Elon Musk, and it won’t stop with President Trump. It’ll go to people who buy MAGA hats… It’ll go to Catholics who go to traditional Latin mass… It’ll go to people who show up to school board meetings who object to radical trans ideology or masking of their kids.”
He went on to argue that even longtime Democrats of an older generation no longer have a place in the party. “Even the old-line Democrats, like my grandfather, who was United Auto Worker, there’s no room for them anymore either,” Schmitt said.
Turning to Michigan, Schmitt criticized the state party’s nomination of Abdul El-Sayed, calling him “a radical, who hates America” and saying Democrats there are “talking about show trials.”
Schmitt closed by urging voters heading to the polls this week, including those participating in early voting, to recognize what he described as the real stakes of the election. “We’re not arguing anymore, Laura, about marginal tax rates. We’re arguing about big stuff,” he said, pointing to Democratic proposals to expand the Senate and the Supreme Court, and to what he called efforts to make voter ID requirements illegal “in places like California, where they’re already doing it.”
“So this is what’s at stake, and so people need to recognize that and vote,” Schmitt said.
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