St. Louis Post-Dispatch slams Hawley: ‘Grossly unfit’ for office

The editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch slammed Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) in an editorial on Thursday, calling him “grossly unfit” for office regarding his position on rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

The editorial board pointed to a tweet that Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) wrote about Hawley earlier this week, in which he called him “one of the worst human beings” and a “con artist.” 

Kinzinger had quote-tweeted an article from The Hill about a letter that Hawley sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling on the Biden administration to drop its support for a prospective Ukrainian membership in NATO — one of Russia’s demands.

“Something serious appears to have prompted Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., to label a fellow Republican, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a ‘con artist’ and ‘one of the worst human beings,’ ” the editorial board wrote.

“Perhaps it was Hawley’s public questioning of the need to defend Ukraine from a Russian invasion. Maybe it was when Hawley this week urged President Joe Biden to cave to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demand that Ukraine be officially denied membership in NATO. Or maybe it was when Hawley falsely asserted that Biden is to blame for Ukraine’s predicament,” the editorial board continued.

The editorial board said that it believed his position on the Russia-Ukraine issue indicated he was “grossly unfit” for office.

“We thought Hawley should’ve resigned his Senate seat for his role in the Capitol insurrection, but the idea that the United States should kneel down to Russia over Ukraine underscores how grossly unfit Hawley is to continue in office,” the editorial board wrote.

The editorial board suggested that the Missouri Republican did not understand the significance of “containing Russian expansionism,” noting that he was a baby at the start of the Soviet Union’s invasion into Afghanistan and elsewhere.

“Republicans these days seem averse to reading any history that makes them feel bad about themselves, which could explain why Hawley’s ignorance is so embarrassingly on display in Washington,” the editorial board wrote. 

This is not the first time that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has criticized Hawley; the newspaper’s editorial board called both Hawley and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) an “embarrassment to the state” for their handling of the impeachment trial of former President Trump.

The remarks from the newspaper’s editorial board come as Hawley urged the Biden administration to drop support for prospective Ukrainian membership in NATO, arguing that the administration should instead be focused on China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific. 

“Today, an increasingly powerful China seeks hegemony in the Indo-Pacific. If China succeeds, it could harness that region’s resources to further propel its rise, while restricting U.S. access to many of the world’s most important markets,”  Hawley wrote. “Americans’ security and prosperity rest upon our ability to keep that from happening, and so the United States must shift resources to the Indo-Pacific to deny China’s bid for regional domination.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki, however, accused the Missouri senator of “parroting Russian talking points.”

The Hill has reached out to Hawley’s office for comment.