Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. raises his fist toward a crowd of supporters of President Donald Trump gathered outside the Capitol on Jan. 6,
The largest newspapers in his home state called on him to resign. His publisher canceled its contract with him for an upcoming book. He's been pilloried by both Democrats and Republicans for leading the futile objection effort.
And a viral photo of Hawley entering the Capitol before the riot, showing the senator in a slim-fitting suit, hair perfectly coiffed and raising his fist toward the gathered crowd, has already become a lasting image of a day that won't soon be forgotten.
"It was like a Dukakis-on-the-tank moment," one Republican strategist told NBC News in reference to a famous attack ad on the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, "in that he just looked phony and out of place and like a doofus." At 41, Hawley is the youngest sitting senator and is thought of as a possible 2024 Republican presidential candidate. Since his election to the Senate in 2018, he's carved out a space for himself as the leading Republican critic of the tech giants — a policy area that had generated him a substantial following and coverage in the press. That's now been overshadowed by his objection effort.
Following the riot, Hawley condemned the violence at the Capitol and said he was simply objecting to the electors to give voice to his constituents in Missouri, a state that went to Trump by 15 points in 2020.
Before any violence took place at the Capitol, Hawley was under fire from colleagues, whether it'd be the likes of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who told MSNBC last week she believed his effort "borders on sedition or treason" or Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah., who said the objections were simply an act to "enhance the political ambitions of some," alluding to possible 2024 presidential aspirations.
Hawley "is talking about Pennsylvania because he wants to come here & run for President some day," Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Pa., tweeted. "The lies he told inspired today's violence. He is still telling those lies. Pennsylvania will never forget."
Rick Tyler, who was communications director for Sen. Ted Cruz's 2016 campaign (the Texas senator led his own objection to the electoral results), said the criticism coming Hawley's way is "well deserved."
"Members of Congress do have a right to challenge electors but doing so must be carefully weighed against substantial evidence of malfeasance," Tyler said. "In Sen. Hawley's case, no such evidence existed to suggest the electors were not legitimate. It is not good enough to say you are representing the voters who believe the election was rigged when that assertion was based on lies and conspiracies that were thoroughly disproven by election officials, recounts, court cases and absence of credible evidence."
"Sen. Hawley’s job was to represent the truth," he added. "Instead, he chose to go along with the president and others, namely Senator Cruz, to incite an insurrection."
Supporting Josh and trying so hard to get him elected to the Senate was the worst mistake I ever made in my life," former Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo., and a mentor to the senator, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Thursday. "It is very dangerous to America to continue pushing this idea that government doesn't work and that voting was fraudulent."
Soon after that remark, Simon & Schuster, which was set to publish his upcoming book "The Tyranny of Big Tech," announced it was canceling its contract with Hawley, pointing to the "deadly insurrection."
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congre ... l-n1253470
Politicians with no moral compass scurrying around trying to grab some of Trump's base for themselves.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan