Does Trump still have Josh Hawley, Eric Schmitt’s support for 2024 run? They won’t say
As former President Donald Trump is expected to launch his reelection campaign Tuesday night, two of his most ardent supporters from Missouri avoided saying whether they would endorse his candidacy.
Senator-elect Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican who enthusiastically courted Trump’s endorsement in his recent campaign, remained silent when asked twice whether he would endorse Trump. Schmitt, the state’s attorney general, was in Washington Tuesday for orientation as an incoming member of the Senate.
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, said it was premature to talk about the 2024 Republican presidential primary before the runoff election for U.S. Senate in Georgia and before the Republican Party had a conversation about its future.
“I think we need to do that before we get to the piece about the personalities of who’s gonna run in ‘24,” Hawley said.
Hawley, who was closely aligned with Trump during his presidency, led the unsuccessful effort in the Senate to object to President Joe Biden’s electoral victory in Pennsylvania after the 2020 election.
The Missouri senator has sometimes been floated as a possible contender for the party’s nomination in 2024, but in recent months he’s been overshadowed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other potential contenders. Hawley has recently indicated that he plans to run for reelection to the U.S. Senate in Missouri in 2024.
Trump is set to announce his candidacy in a moment where he is perceived as politically weak. The former president, who is facing a series of legal challenges, has been blamed by many Republicans for their party’s disappointing midterm, in which the Democrats maintained control of the Senate and the Republicans are poised to only narrowly win the House after members of their leadership predicted a “red wave.”
The candidates Trump endorsed were criticized as unvetted and unelectable. Some of the most prominent candidates who repeated his unfounded claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen — like gubernatorial candidates Kari Lake in Arizona, Tudor Dixon in Michigan and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania — were defeated in key swing states.
But Trump, who still appears to hold considerable sway over his party’s most loyal supporters, has weathered such criticism before.
Since the election, Hawley has been calling for a dramatic shift in the focus of the Republican Party. He’s said he wants it to move away from the kind of Reagan Republicanism that focused on helping big businesses and to embrace his vision of a conservative, nationalist, working-class populism.
“I’ve been clear about my own views on this, which is that we need to have a change in leadership. That’s true irrespective of the election results.”
However, the leader Hawley wants to take down is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, not Trump, the party’s most significant figure.
McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, has planned a Republican vote on conference leadership Wednesday, a move Hawley said would potentially disenfranchise Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker, who faces a runoff in Georgia against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock on December 6.
“It’s strange to say to Herschel Walker, please go out there and win this for us,” Hawley said. “But we have no interest in what you think we ought to be doing for leadership elections or for an agenda.”
During a contentious Republican conferen meeting where senators took turns airing their grievances, Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican who shares a consulting team with Hawley, announced that he would challenge McConnell for his leadership role.
Scott and McConnell’s allies have blamed each other in the wake of the party’s disappointing midterm performance. Scott chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the cycle and face criticism for some of his decisions, including issuing a controversial 11-point policy plan that included a tax increase on most Americans.
“The status quo is broken and big change is needed. It’s time for new leadership in the Senate that unites Republicans to advance a bold conservative agenda,” Scott said on Twitter Tuesday afternoon. “That’s why I’m running to be the Senate Republican Leader.”
After the conference meeting Tuesday, Hawley enthusiastically said he would support Scott, a Florida Republican who shares a consulting team with him. But he indicated that support was more of a vote against McConnell than for Scott.
“For me, it’s as much a proxy vote as anything,” Hawley said. “I would seek to be recorded as no on the record if there was nobody running.”
McConnell on Tuesday offered criticism of the Trump wing of the Republican Party, implying that contingent of the party alienated voters.
“Their impression of many of the people in our party and in leadership roles is that they’re involved in chaos, negativity, excessive attacks,” McConnell said. “And it frightened independent and moderate voters.”
He specifically called out the results in Arizona, where Republican Blake Masters lost to Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly. Hawley endorsed Masters and campaigned for him in the final weeks of the election.
Schmitt, the incoming Missouri freshman, has also said he supports a change in Republican leadership.
During his campaign, Schmitt actively courted Trump’s endorsement and held multiple fundraisers at Mar-a-Lago. But the night before a hard fought primary, Trump only partially delievered. He endorsed “Eric,” hedging his bet between Schmitt and former Gov. Eric Greitens, who resigned his office amid a series of scandals.
A political action committee closely aligned with McConnell spent millions attacking Greitens to prevent his victory, effectively helping Schmitt win the nomination in the process.
Schmitt and four other newly elected Republicans, met with McConnell for a little under an hour on Tuesday in the Senate minority leader’s Capitol office. When he emerged he looked ahead and stayed silent when asked about the meeting and whether he’d support McConnell as leader, mimicking a move McConnell has employed often during his 37 years in office.
Schmitt remained silent when asked a similar series of questions later in the day: whether he would support McConnell, whether he would support Trump and whether he believed the St. Louis Cardinals would win the World Series next year.
This story was originally published November 15, 2022 at 1:25 PM.
