Eric Schmitt Attorney General of Missouri on justice, culture change, liberty & the American dream

About this episode

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt joins Vance for a wide-ranging conversation on the philosophical foundations of American government, opening with Hobbesian social-contract theory and the uniqueness of a system where rights predate the state. The two trace how the AG's office functions, then move into cancel culture and mob justice as threats to the First Amendment "pressure release valve," student loan debt and the outdated university model, occupational licensing and healthcare regulation as barriers to opportunity, and finally the administrative state as an unaccountable fourth branch of government. Vance shares his own conversion from World Bank true-believer to bureaucracy skeptic, and the two close discussing DC's disconnect from "flyover country" and the value of engaging people across political difference.

“This is one thing actually, maybe the greatest threat to our republic is, and I, what is what has come of age that the founders never saw coming, which was these unelected bureaucrats who are accountable to nobody issuing letters or opinions or rules that have the force and effect of law that are never voted on by Congress, never gone through that kind of scrutiny.”

“The biggest challenge where I think we're in right now is that we're, you know, whether you want to call it cancel culture or whatever it is, like if somebody's got a different opinion, you know, you need to ruin their life. You know, they need to be exiled. It's not healthy.”

“DC has lost touch. You know, we sort of, you know, we're in flyover country or the heartland or whatever you wanna call it, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of common sense that comes from the, this part of the country. And I think the decisions that are being made in that bubble of Washington DC where you have all of those bureaucrats...”

Key moments

• Schmitt describes the sweeping scope of the AG's office, from Supreme Court cases to $5,000 contractor disputes, and namedrops past officeholders including Clarence Thomas as a young assistant AG (legacy).
• Schmitt explains the founders' revolutionary claim that rights predate government and come from God, not kings, framing this as the core of American exceptionalism (legacy).
• Schmitt cites statistics that over 40% of Americans under 35 believe the First Amendment is dangerous and one in ten think Judge Judy sits on the Supreme Court, as evidence of civics education failure.
• Schmitt names cancel culture directly, warning that exiling people for differing opinions breeds resentment and drives ideas into "dark corners" (mob).
• Vance argues student loan debt and non-dischargeable bankruptcy trap young workers, comparing it to conditions ripe for a "strong man" offering debt forgiveness for power (money).
• Vance describes meat-processing bottlenecks during COVID and the case for hyper-local food resilience, prompting a discussion of occupational licensing (barbers, physical therapists) as unnecessary economic barriers.
• Schmitt calls the unelected administrative state "maybe the greatest threat to our republic," describing agency rulemaking that never faces a vote (institutions).
• Schmitt and Vance discuss DC as a bubble disconnected from the Midwest, with career bureaucrats outlasting elected officials (bubbles, institutions).
• Schmitt reflects on cross-party friendships in the Missouri Senate, citing his nonverbal son with special needs as a reason he values seeing people's full humanity beyond politics (trust).

Notable quotes

“This is one thing actually, maybe the greatest threat to our republic is... these unelected bureaucrats who are accountable to nobody issuing letters or opinions or rules that have the force and effect of law that are never voted on by Congress.”

“If somebody's got a different opinion, you know, you need to ruin their life. You know, they need to be exiled. It's not healthy.”

“The founding fathers could not possibly have imagined what it would be like if we strapped trillions of dollars of debt into our youngest workers.”

“DC has lost touch... there's a lot of common sense that comes from this part of the country.”

Predictions made in this episode

• Higher education is on the verge of a massive disruption to the brick-and-mortar, Oxford-model system, driven by accelerating job/career change and remote-learning shifts exposed by the pandemic.
• Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, will increasingly be used to unwind administrative-state rulemaking power back toward elected legislatures.