Right now, my senator in Missouri, Josh Hawley, has what seems to be an insurmountable lead over his Democratic challenger, Lucas Kunce. In all likelihood, Hawley is going to win a second term, and he may well win more after that. We may be stuck with him forever. As a retired three-term Republican senator, I helped get Hawley elected last time around. I’m 88 years old, and during a lifetime spent in politics, helping Josh Hawley win was the biggest mistake I ever made. Let me tell you the story.
Back in 2006, I was invited to give a lecture at Yale Law School, my alma mater. While I was in New Haven, the law school’s dean, Harold Koh, had a dinner party for me, and he told me he wanted me to sit next to a third-year student named Josh Hawley. He said, “He is from your state, and he is interested in politics.” Koh told me that Josh was head of the school’s chapter of the Federalist Society, so he was more conservative than most people at Yale Law School (which is an easy thing to be). But, Koh said, “He is such a good person.” Those were Dean Koh’s words.
I chatted with Josh at dinner, and I liked him. In the years afterward, I kept up with him. Hawley returned to Missouri, he taught constitutional law at the University of Missouri, and one time he had me as a guest in one of his classes. He was very interested in books, and he was particularly interested in the theory of communitarianism. One time, we had a long phone conversation about the new book by the conservative thinker Yuval Levin. Another time, Josh came for lunch at our house and brought me, as a gift, a copy of On Fraternity, a book by the British politician Danny Kruger. Josh is a first-rate intellectual. And it was a warm relationship.
I said he had the possibility of being to the Senate what Pat Moynihan was in my day, somebody who could add real intellectual heft to the Senate’s deliberations.
In 2016, I supported Josh in his campaign for state attorney general, and in January 2016 I went to Jefferson City to attend his swearing-in. I was one of two mentors who turned out on his behalf; the other was historian David Kennedy, who had been Josh’s teacher and advisor at Stanford University.
The following year, I was one of four former Republican senators from Missouri—Kit Bond, John Ashcroft, and Jim Talent were the others—who asked Josh to run against incumbent Claire McCaskill for the Senate. I knew Josh would be lambasted for running for Senate after only two years in politics, so I thought I should be part of a movement to encourage him to run. I helped write a public letter urging him to seek the Senate seat, asked the other ex-senators to sign it, and got some more prominent signatories. He was easily persuaded.
During that campaign, my wife, Sally, and I held a fundraiser for him. My daughter, Mary Stillman, also had a fundraiser for him. I traveled to Kansas City to attend another fundraiser. I was generally active and vocal on his behalf. After he won, Sally and I drove to Columbia, Mo., to have lunch with Josh and his wife, Erin, to talk to them about life in Washington: life in the Senate, where they would live, how he would arrange his schedule, committee assignments, etc. And before he took office, I wrote him a letter, in which I said he had the possibility of being to the Senate what Pat Moynihan was in my day, somebody who could add real intellectual heft to the Senate’s deliberations.
That was the last contact I had with him.
In all likelihood, Hawley is going to win a second term, and he may well win more after that. We may be stuck with him forever.
From the beginning, I disagreed with Josh on certain matters of policy. Although we are both Republicans, he was always to my right. That was fine—we didn’t have to agree on everything. But his behavior on January 6, 2021, changed everything. That day, we saw a direct attack on the constitutional order. And Josh, of all people, knew better—after all, he had clerked for Chief Justice Roberts. He had taught constitutional law.
His perfidy began before Jan. 6. In December 2020, Josh knew there was no possibility the election result would be overturned. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell urged Republican senators not to object to Congress’s ratification of the Electoral College; had nobody objected, the certification would have been a mere formality. Josh was the first to object. After he objected, Ted Cruz and others felt they also had to object. He broke that dam. Josh then went on Fox News and said the result of the election would be determined on Jan. 6, and he knew that was not true. And then, on Jan. 6, he went out in front of the Capitol—it was obviously contrived, he wasn’t just passing by without a topcoat on a January day—and encouraged the mob. He did the unthinkable. He had an oath to support and defend the Constitution, and instead he caused great damage to our country.
I have no theory of what Josh Hawley is thinking. I cannot put myself in his head. What I do know is that he did something terrible; he did it on purpose; and he never expressed any regret.
The damage that the MAGA Republicans have done to the country has been incalculable. There are efforts underway to take the Republican Party back—I am part of one such effort, called Our Republican Legacy—and I know that the task is formidable. The guiding principles of our party, including free enterprise, fiscal responsibility, and peace through strength, have all been undermined by Donald Trump and his enablers. Many enablers, like Josh, embrace “Christian nationalism”; nearly all endorse high, protective tariffs, as well as isolationism. Josh has been part of the problem all along—for example, he was the lone senator to vote against adding Sweden and Finland to NATO—turning a responsible, conservative party into one that is neither responsible nor conservative. Jan. 6 was simply the worst day among many bad days for Josh Hawley.
And it was, I am sad to say, a bad day for me as well. I have expressed regret before, but now, on the cusp of Josh Hawley’s reelection, it’s worth saying again: supporting him was the biggest mistake I have ever made.