The junior senator from Missouri drew widespread condemnation but defended his decision to object to Congress’s certification of the election results.
The day after Josh Hawley became the first Republican senator to say he would indulge President Trump’s demand that lawmakers try to overturn the election, a reporter asked if he thought the gambit would make him unpopular with his colleagues. “More than I already am?” he retorted. Even before Mr. Hawley lodged what was certain to be a futile objection to Congress’s certification of the results, the 41-year-old senator — regarded as a rising Republican star who could one day run for president — was far from the chamber’s most popular lawmaker. His insistence on pressing the challenge after a violent mob egged on by Mr. Trump stormed the Capitol to protest President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory, endangering the entire Congress and the vice president in a day of terror that left at least five people dead, has earned him pariah status in Washington. But while Mr. Hawley’s role in the riot may have left him shunned — at least for now — in official circles, it may only have improved his stock with his party’s base in his home state, which remains deeply loyal to Mr. Trump. His fellow Republicans in the Senate lined up to blame Mr. Hawley for the riot. The editorial boards of major newspapers in Missouri accused him of having “blood on his hands” and called on him to resign. His publisher canceled his book deal and his erstwhile mentor called his efforts to get Mr. Hawley elected to the Senate “the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.” “But for him, it wouldn’t have happened,” former Senator John C. Danforth of Missouri, the Republican elder statesman, told The Kansas City Star of his former protégé’s role in the riot. Mr. Hawley has remained defiant, arguing Wednesday evening that the electoral count in Congress was the proper venue to debate his concerns about fraud in the balloting, though he never made a specific charge of wrongdoing. “I will never apologize for giving voice to the millions of Missourians and Americans who have concerns about the integrity of our elections,” Mr. Hawley said in a statement. “That’s my job, and I will keep doing it.” But many Republicans dismissed his effort as grandstanding intended to further his own political ambitions. Some Democratic senators demanded his resignation. And on Friday, Mr. Biden said that the senator was part of “the big lie” that had animated Mr. Trump’s refusal to concede, invoking Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany’s minister of propaganda. Mr. Hawley lashed out at Mr. Biden, accusing him of “undignified, immature, and intemperate behavior” and calling on him to “retract these sick comments.
