Controversial hiring shows there are 'no guardrails against extremists' in the GOP

Sen. Eric Schmitt at the 2023 Turning Point Action Conference in Palm Beach, Florida on July 16, 2023

In 2023, far-right conspiracy theorist Nate Hochman (not to be confused with 61-year-old Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman) was fired from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' struggling presidential campaign after promoting an online video that contained neo-Nazi imagery.

But that wasn't the end of Hochman's involvement in politics. In February, Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri) hired Hochman as a policy adviser — a move that, according to The Guardian's Jason Wilson, shows that in 2025, "there are few barriers to far-right activists making a career in Republican Party politics."

In an article published on June 6, Wilson explains, "The Guardian reported last September on Hochman's previous job at America 2100, an organization founded in 2023 as a think tank. The organization was founded by Mike Needham, who served as Marco Rubio's chief of staff from 2018 to 2023 when Rubio was a senator and who is once again his chief of staff at the State Department. In that and subsequent reporting, it was revealed that Hochman's work for America 2100 was focused on producing videos — some of which targeted Haitian migrants in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, and others that rehearsed conspiracy theories about LGBTQ people and human rights organizations."

Wilson adds, "This was the latest in a string of scandals in the young operative's political career."

Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, finds Schmitt's willingness to hire Hochman troubling.

Beirich told The Guardian, "Hochman’s position shows once again that there are no guardrails against extremists in the GOP nowadays. Racism, antisemitism and other abhorrent beliefs don't seem to stop extremists from appointments with far-right politicians, including in the highest office of the presidency."

Wilson notes that in 2022, Hochman promoted the Great Replacement conspiracy theory during an interview with right-wing radio host Glenn Beck — claiming that the Biden Administration was "fundamentally trying to change this country through their illegal immigration policy."

Read The Guardian's full article at this link.