Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP
Sen. Josh Hawley, the Missouri Republican who infamously pumped his fist at the pre-riot Capitol crowd on the morning of January 6, said in an appearance at a conservative conference Friday night that he didn’t regret his actions—and that he wouldn’t “run” from a fight with his political foes. It was an unusual choice of words for a man who, in a primetime hearing just a day earlier, was revealed to have run away from the very mob that he had helped incite.
“And I just want to say to all of those liberals out there and the liberal media, just in case you haven’t gotten the message yet: I do not regret it. And I am not backing down,” Hawley told a cheering crowd at Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida. “I’m not gonna apologize, I’m not gonna cower, I’m not gonna run from you, I’m not gonna bend the knee.”
Josh Hawley runs out on stage in Tampa tonight and says he has a message for liberals about J6: “I do not regret it! I am not backing down! I’m not gonna apologize, I’M NOT GONNA COWER, I’M NOT GONNA RUN FROM YOU, I’m not gonna bend the knee!” pic.twitter.com/e14PhWaTyD
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) July 22, 2022
In case you’ve forgotten, here’s Hawley’s January 6 highlight reel:
The story of #January6th in two Josh Hawley moments. pic.twitter.com/mQJq3cUy6z
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) July 22, 2022
And as my colleague Tim Murphy wrote on Thursday:
That broken form is the gait of a man finally reaping what he sowed. Was all of this a little gratuitous? I mean, sure. The committee has shown a knack for getting in a few extra punches on occasion. But it’s also sort of perfect—a postscript to the earlier image that completes the little parable: The Republican Party, or most of it anyway championed a dangerous movement it never truly controlled. Even those who are delusional enough to think they might some day lead it have been running from its wrath all along.
