Aug 21, 2025 · 1h 0m · allin
Senator Eric Schmitt: Exposing the Biggest Censorship Scandal in US History
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of The All-In Podcast, co-hosts Jason Calacanis and David Sacks interview Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt about his landmark lawsuit against federal speech censorship, the weaponization of intelligence agencies, and the principles of American realism in foreign policy regarding the war in Ukraine.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The hosts hold 56.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The hosts as informed peer 5.3 Guest teaching 3.2 Guest disagreement 1.5 The hosts pushing back 3.6
speaking balance: gold is the hosts, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 41:10 Schmitt calls out legal double standard on Biden versus Trump documents
Senator Schmitt forcefully dismisses the Mar-a-Lago document accusations by pointing out that Vice President Biden stored classified boxes in his garage despite having no declassification authority.
Hardest push from the hosts ▶ 46:05 Calacanis rejects linking Russiagate to the invasion of UkraineCalacanis aggressively refuses Sacks's argument that domestic Russiagate rhetoric caused Putin's invasion, demanding that Sacks acknowledge Putin as a war criminal who murdered civilians.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 26:47 Schmitt details CISA's expansion into domestic censorshipSenator Schmitt educates the hosts on how CISA partnered with academic centers to flag domestic posts, shifting from election integrity directly into censoring COVID-19 medical dissent.
The host holds their own ▶ 14:34 Sacks details firsthand discovery of Twitter shadow-banning toolsDavid Sacks demonstrates deep insider expertise by recounting his late-night call with Elon Musk confirming internal administrative check-boxes used to systematically throttle conservative accounts.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The hosts as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The hosts pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Casual Pre-Interview Banter and Polo Shirt Joke | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Casual introductory banter covering wardrobe choices and Senator Schmitt's polo shirt comparison to Volodymyr Zelensky. | |
| Origins of Missouri v. Biden and Uncovering Big Tech Censorship | 4 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Senator Schmitt explains his legal strategy in Missouri v. Biden, prioritizing discovery before preliminary injunctions, while Sacks adds context on Section 230 and White House pressure. | |
| Free Speech Ideology and Alleged Regulatory Coercion | 6 | 2 | 2 | 4 | Calacanis steel-mans government action against foreign election interference and introduces the regulatory pressure posed by FTC Chair Lina Khan. | |
| Government Jawboning vs. Tech Executive Compliance | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Sacks provides an analytical defense of Mark Zuckerberg's fifth estate philosophy while contrasting his commercial motivations with Elon Musk's principle-driven approach. | |
| The Twitter Files, Shadow Banning, and Section 230 Nuance | 7 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Sacks shares firsthand experience from the Twitter transition revealing internal admin tools used for shadow banning, while Calacanis probes the legal boundaries of Section 230 and algorithms. | |
| FBI Influence and the Hunter Biden Laptop Suppression | 8 | 4 | 2 | 6 | Calacanis argues tech platforms acted reasonably under FBI warnings regarding Russian hacks, prompting Sacks to forcefully counter with evidence from the Twitter Files and FBI tabletop exercises. | |
| CISA, COVID-19 Censorship, and the Fauci Deposition | 2 | 6 | 1 | 1 | Schmitt educates the hosts on the administrative scope of CISA and details key admissions from Anthony Fauci's deposition regarding the suppression of dissenting scientists. | |
| Bureaucratic FOIA Subversion and the Hamilton 68 Debate | 7 | 2 | 2 | 6 | Sacks breaks down the Hamilton 68 dashboard fraud revealed by Matt Taibbi, while Calacanis pushes back against dismissing broader Russian cyber operations. | |
| Foreign Cyber Operations, Steele Dossier, and Political Lawfare | 5 | 5 | 3 | 6 | Calacanis directly challenges Schmitt on why Donald Trump refused to return classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, which Schmitt counters by citing presidential declassification rights. | |
| The Classified Documents Controversy and Legal Double Standards | 6 | 3 | 2 | 5 | Sacks presents details from newly released DNI documents showing John Brennan included the Steele dossier despite internal CIA warnings, while hosts debate potential legal charges. | |
| Linking Russiagate to Geopolitical Tensions and the Ukraine Conflict | 6 | 2 | 1 | 7 | Calacanis forcefully confronts Sacks over linking domestic Russiagate narratives to Putin's decision to invade Ukraine, insisting on calling Putin a war criminal. | |
| Senator Eric Schmitt on Foreign Policy Realism and NATO Responsibilities | 4 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Schmitt outlines his foreign policy realism framework, arguing European allies must fund their own defense to allow the US to pivot resources toward China. | |
| Evaluating Ukrainian Governance, Democratic Legitimacy, and Public Polling | 7 | 4 | 3 | 6 | Sacks counters Calacanis's framing of Ukrainian democracy by citing Gallup polling data showing 76 percent of Ukrainians favor a negotiated end to the war. |
Statements from this episode (26)
Schmitt: Federal censorship was the greatest First Amendment affront in US history
“Fast censorship enterprise that existed that, in my view, was the greatest affront to the First Amendment we've ever seen in the history of our country.”
Schmitt: Missouri AG office prioritized discovery over immediate injunction in Biden lawsuit
“A really important strategic decision in the case was normally when you file a lawsuit like that, you immediately seek a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction to get the government or another party to stop what they're doing. But we felt like w…”
Schmitt: FBI possessed Hunter Biden's laptop in 2019 during pre-bunking efforts
“We took the deposition of Elvis Chan, who was the FBI agent in charge of Northern California that was pre-bunking the Hunter Biden laptop story, even though the FBI had the laptop in 2019, right?”
Schmitt: The ACLU no longer protects free speech and focuses on censorship
“And even the ACLU actually did things like protect free speech. That's all gone now. Like that, there's no, like it's about power and control and limiting and labeling things, misinformation, disinformation to suppress speech.”
Calacanis: 80% to 95% of social media employees are Democrats
“If you just look at the percentage of people who are Democrats at those companies, it's like 80, 90, 95%.”
Calacanis: Biden administration used FTC and censorship requests to pressure Big Tech
“They also put Lena Kahn in. Now Zuckerberg is a cutthroat business executive. He likes to buy companies. That's his thing. And Twitter was known for buying a lot of companies. So now you got Lena Kahn saying, We're gonna come down hard on you, not let you buy …”
Calacanis: Zuckerberg would have fully backed Harris had she won
“If Kamala won, he would have been all in for Kamala a hundred percent. He would have been at the inauguration for her. He would have donated to her.”
Calacanis: Zuckerberg prioritizes Meta's stock price over free speech principles
“He's the anti-Elon in that respect. He's the anti-Elon. He cares about his stock price. He cares about money. This is my interpretation, and he's going to protect the franchise and the stock price.”
Sacks: Pre-acquisition Twitter admin tools had checkboxes to shadowban accounts
“So anyway, he calls, and basically what he told me was that all the conspiracy theories are true, that we've now gone into the admin tools that the trust and safety team was using, and they literally have check boxes to throttle accounts based on, exclude them…”
Senator Schmitt: Tech platforms suppressing viewpoints should lose Section 230 protections
“If you're going to start making these, whether it's a, you know, somebody individually is flagging it, or you have an algorithm that is essentially excluding 50% of the points of view, You should not get the multi-billion dollar subsidy that effectively what s…”
Sacks: Censorship of Hunter Biden laptop could have changed 2020 election
“There is a very plausible argument that the censorship of this story could have swung the results of the twenty-twenty election, okay?”
Schmitt: CISA partnered with Stanford and UW to flag social media posts
“Take CISA, which is the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency. No one's ever heard of it. It was created effectively to protect infrastructure from cyber attacks. In that era when Trump was present underground, They work on, under the guise of Russian d…”
Schmitt: Fauci deposition revealed efforts to undermine Jay Bhattacharya over natural immunity
“When we had the opportunity to take Anthony Fauci's deposition at NIH that was mind blowing. It's only the second time his deposition was taken and we find out all the links that which he went to undermine people like, by the way, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who was…”
Sacks: Twitter Files showed Hamilton 68 tracked regular domestic accounts, not Russians
“During the Twitter files, we found out there was Yoel Roth, who you mentioned was the head of trust and safety, and definitely not a conservative. There was correspondence inside of Twitter saying, hey, we looked at their so-called API, and these are just regu…”
Sacks: Steele dossier was a hoax and basis of Russia 2016 probe
“We also know that the Steele dossier was a hoax, and that was the whole basis once laundered through the FBI and that whole investigation, that somehow the Russians had interfered in the 2016 election.”
Schmitt: Released DNI documents show Clinton was Russia's preferred candidate
“Actually in the documents that were released by Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, was that Hillary Clinton was the preferred candidate. They had the goods on her. They had her medical records, all this stuff. So Trump was not like this pref…”
Schmitt: Comey, Clapper, and Brennan are likely targets for Russiagate prosecutions
“But I think that like the most likely targets of that are Comey, Clapper and Brennan for their role.”
Schmitt: Biden kept classified documents without declassification authority as VP
“Joe Biden, Who wasn't ever president, he was vice president, who can't declassify documents, had boxes and boxes of classified documents in his garage where Hunter Biden lived.”
Sacks: Declassified records show Brennan overrode analysts to include Steele dossier
“Brennan was like the head of the CIA. He received an intelligence assessment from the organization in which they said, look, there's nothing to this. It's bogus. We haven't. Not just the Steele d'Ossie, but the whole idea of somehow that the Russians had run t…”
Sacks: Russiagate was effectively a coup against Donald Trump
“It was effectively a coup against the president of the United States, because these were executive branch officials who owe a duty of loyalty to the elected president. Instead, they were working to subvert and undermine him based on Essentially lies and hoaxes…”
Schmitt: China currently has a larger Navy than the US
“Where China now has a bigger Navy than we have. Not a better Navy, but a bigger Navy.”
Calacanis: Global democracy indexes rank Ukraine far higher than Russia
“If you were to look at any of the ratings of democracies in the world, Russia would be amongst the lowest scores. And the Ukraine would be in the high middle scores compared to the truly free countries.”
Sacks: There is no democracy in Ukraine right now
“There is no democracy in Ukraine right now. There's just not.”
Sacks: Gallup poll shows Ukrainian support for continuing war collapsed to 24%
“A year ago, support for the war was in the sixties or seventies. Now it's collapsed to 24%. So the vast majority of Ukrainians now want a resolution to the conflict, even if it means making concessions.”