Former U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill is reminding Americans who was "largely responsible" for the events leading up to the January 6 insurrection: Sen. Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri.
The House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack's Thursday night primetime hearing included the now-iconic photo of Senator Hawley pumping his fist high into the air in solidarity with the rioters, some of whom were violent, carrying weapons, and destructive – not only of the Capitol, but of American democracy. People, including Capitol law enforcement officers, died that day and in the days following.
Josh Hawley fled after riling up the crowd with his raised fist. pic.twitter.com/K6PHDonR0R
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) July 22, 2022
Many watching the primetime hearing were stunned to see previously unreleased footage of Hawley inside the Capitol, literally running for his life, after, as McCaskill noted on MSNBC Thursday night, he had placed the events in motion.
"One important thing to remember here," McCaskill, a Democrat who lost her Senate seat to the far right wing Hawley in 2018, "Josh Hawley was largely responsible for that day. We have to remember how this came down."
"Mitch McConnell got everyone together and said there has to be a senator, that objects– we're not going to object. It would absolutely be a mistake for us to object, and one senator defied him," she said, referring to Hawley. "One senator decided politically, it would be in his best interest to take up the mantle of refusing to allow the will of the American people to pass peacefully to the next president."
"That was Josh Hawley, and Josh Hawley – once Josh Hawley did that, then he had a lot of other rats who joined him on that particular boat, including Ted Cruz and others," MCCaskill added. "But he, if you remember, on the floor, after this all happened, Mitt Romney was as mad as I have ever seen Mitt Romney, as he confronted Josh Hawley in his speech saying, 'You did this with your lies. You did this.' So this is really quite a bookend, that picture of the fist. And can I just tell you? No Senators run in the Capitol, ever. It is not what you do in the Capitol if you're a senator. You walk, slowly. You do not run for your life, and that's what he was doing there. He is afraid and he is showing that he's afraid and I hope that sears into people's memories, that he is the one who began this whole mess."
Rachel Maddow pointed out "the contrast between riling them in that moment," referring to Hawley's fist in the air, "when he in that moment is protected from them, and then once they close in on him he takes off."
U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), a member of the Select Committee who hosted a large portion of Thursday night's hearing, Friday morning joined in what has now become tremendous mocking of Sen. Hawley on social media.
"Worth remembering," Kinzinger tweeted, "Josh Hawley was the first senator to say he would object to the electoral college, causing a cascade of Ted Cruz-es. There would not have been as much oxygen to trumps coup plan without Fistpump McRunpants."
Watch McCaskill below or at this link:
