If he can’t defend Trump, Eric Schmitt can always attack the Democrats | Opinion
Sen. Eric Schmitt stepped forward on Tuesday morning to decry the president’s ugly assault on the Catholic faith.
Just not that assault. And not that president.
Instead, the Missouri Republican took dead aim at Joe Biden. Who (you might remember) hasn’t been president for more than a year. And who — being famously Catholic — has never publicly insulted the pope or posted idolatrous memes portraying himself as Jesus.
Unlike, well, you-know-who.
Rather than weigh in on the elephant in the room, though, Schmitt pointed to a new report from President Donald Trump’s Justice Department alleging the Biden administration “weaponized” federal law against antiabortion protestors, seeking harsher penalties for folks who broke federal law by blocking clinic entrances than for pro-choice defendants.
“Remember when the government actually went after pro-life Catholics?” Schmitt wrote Tuesday on X. “The DOJ just released a bombshell report detailing how the Biden administration actually targeted believers for prosecution. We must never forget what we are up against.”
Fair’s fair: If the new report is accurate — and it’s difficult to take at face value, given Trump’s well-documented penchant for using the Justice Department to go after his political enemies — then Schmitt might have something of a point, at least as far as conservatives are concerned.
Given the timing, though, it sure looks like the senator was running cover for Trump.
The president sparked a backlash after his rambling Sunday night social media post decrying Pope Leo as “WEAK on crime.” Trump eventually deleted the separate image comparing himself to Jesus, but he otherwise refused to back down.
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Trump told reporters on Monday.
Which leaves Schmitt somewhat torn between his two great faiths.
Schmitt is devoutly Catholic: He recently did a social media fast for Lent, and he attended the funeral of Pope Francis last year.
He is also devoutly Trumpist.
Which puts Schmitt in the position — like a lot of Catholics on both ends of the ideological spectrum — of embracing some of the church’s positions more fervently than others.
He’s definitely antiabortion. But he’s also a big supporter of the Trump administration’s deportation operations, routinely — unfairly — painting the migrant community as prone to criminality and maybe even incapable of democratic self-governance.
That puts Schmitt at odds with a pope who has called Trump’s anti-migrant policies “extremely disrespectful, to say the least.”
It has to be uncomfortable. Who would want to get in the middle of that fight? Not Schmitt.
So on Tuesday the Missourian didn’t defend the president. And he didn’t defend the pope. He attacked Democrats instead. You don’t have to choose between faiths as long as you can knock Joe Biden around.
This story was originally published April 14, 2026 at 3:07 PM.
