Sen. Eric Schmitt engaged in a heated exchange with Robert Weissman, co-president of the left-wing advocacy group Public Citizen, during questioning that focused on the organization’s repeated claims of systemic racism across major American institutions and its views on immigration enforcement.

The exchange began with Schmitt questioning Weissman directly on whether deportations themselves should be considered racist.

“Are deportations racist?” Schmitt asked.

“Are deportations racist? It depends. They can be racist,” Weissman responded.

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Schmitt followed up by asking whether U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is racist.

“Okay, Is ICE Racist?” Schmitt said.

“I think the practices of ice right now are abhorrent, exactly as you said, for American values. I think the practices of ice right now are abhorrent,” Weissman replied.

Schmitt then pressed Weissman to distinguish between immigration enforcement as a concept and the agency itself.

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“But ICE itself, the organization. Is it racist?” Schmitt asked.

“Yeah. he enforcing immigration and customs laws per se is not racist. What ICE actually is doing, I believe, can fairly be characterized as racist,” Weissman said.

Schmitt shifted the questioning to Public Citizen’s funding sources, asking whether the organization receives financial support linked to billionaire George Soros.

“Okay. I ask this because we did a little bit of digging into Public Citizen found two things. One is, you're funded by George Soros, correct?” Schmitt asked.

“The Open Society Foundation is one of our funders, Yes,” Weissman said.

Schmitt then accused Public Citizen of broadly labeling institutions it opposes as racist and challenged Weissman to respond to specific examples from the organization’s public statements and social media activity.

“And you call just about everything you don't like racist,” Schmitt said.

“That is not true,” Weissman responded.

Schmitt proceeded to list a series of Public Citizen statements and tweets spanning several years, citing examples in which the organization labeled the banking sector, healthcare system, law enforcement, census questions, and other policies and institutions as racist.

“Okay. Let me give you a few examples,” Schmitt said.

“Sure,” Weissman replied.

After detailing the statements, Schmitt asked Weissman directly whether he stood by them.

“Do you stand by these statements?” Schmitt asked.

“Well, I appreciate the depths in which you've gone. Have researched in the context of all those statements, yes, sir,” Weissman said.

Schmitt then summarized Weissman’s position.

“So all of those things are racist,” Schmitt said.

“If you want to go through them, we can,” Weissman responded.

Schmitt said he appreciated Weissman’s willingness to affirm the statements, contrasting it with what he described as evasiveness from other witnesses.

“I'm really glad. No, no, hold on. I'm glad for this moment of clarity, because a lot of witnesses would try to sidestep that,” Schmitt said.

“That's correct,” Weissman replied.

Schmitt concluded the exchange by accusing Public Citizen of using accusations of racism as a political tactic and warned of forthcoming legal action related to alleged fraud.

“But what you have shown in the in the questioning we've seen before, in just these examples, the public interest isn't your interest at all. It is not your interest at all. You use racism as an attempt to intimidate people to get your way, and it's not 2020 anymore. The American people are over it,” Schmitt said.

He went on to say, “So what you're going to find is we are going to prosecute, and has nothing to do with race. We're going to prosecute because fraud was committed on a level that is so offensive to this country. Your words that don't mean anything aren't going to stop what's coming. And I want you to take that back to George Soros and all these ridiculous funders you have to try to muddle the issue, because justice is coming.”

Schmitt ended his remarks by stating, “And by the way, if I have it my way, we will denaturalize all these fraudsters and send them home. Mr. Chairman, I'm out of time.”

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