Josh Hawley: ‘Hit Vladimir Putin Where It Hurts’

M issouri GOP senator Josh Hawley issued a statement on Thursday condemning “Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine” and calling on Biden to “hit Vladimir Putin where it hurts” with sanctions and “help arm the Ukrainians to defend themselves.”

Here’s Hawley’s full statement:

Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine and invasion of its territory must be met with strong American resolve. President Biden must act now to hit Vladimir Putin where it hurts, beginning with Russia’s energy sector. The Biden Administration should sanction Russian energy production to a halt, and help arm the Ukrainians to defend themselves. At the same time, the White House should reopen American energy production in full. This is the time to show Russia and the world that America will not reward aggression and it will not be dependent on its enemies.

More than any other sitting U.S. Republican senator, Josh Hawley has positioned himself as the leader of the nationalist-populist wing of the party. Hawley and the populists more generally have a strong non-interventionist streak. Hawley was one of the few Republicans in the Senate to back Donald Trump’s November 2020 announcement of a rapid withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Earlier this month, Hawley called on Biden to revoke U.S. support for Ukraine’s membership into NATO. Ukrainian membership in NATO was a non-starter for the foreseeable future — because prospective members must resolve border disputes before joining and every existing NATO member must agree to add a new country — but offering that sop to Russia now clearly placed Hawley on the side of the “America First” non-interventionists.

As Politico reported last week, Hawley was one of just about a dozen GOP senators who “did not sign onto legislation released last week that outlines the GOP position on what should happen when Putin invades Ukraine. That bill proposed a harsh slate of sanctions including some that go further than what European allies are comfortable with.”

Hawley’s strong emphasis now on sanctions and arming Ukrainians is a break with nationalist-populists such as former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and Ohio GOP Senate candidate J. D. Vance, who have argued America has no interest at all in Ukraine.

“I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another,” Vance told Bannon last week. Hawley endorsed Vance’s Senate bid last September.

Populists such Fox News host Tucker Carlson have also been railing against Russia sanctions on the grounds that they will hit working-class Americans in their pocketbooks. “Energy prices in the United States are about to go way up,” Carlson said on his show on Tuesday night. “You’re about to become measurably poorer. . . . On the other hand, you’re about to win a moral victory against dastardly old Vladimir Putin,” he said sarcastically.

Hawley, on the other hand, specifically says Biden “should sanction Russian energy production to a halt” while at the same time reopening “American energy production in full.”

Carlson, Vance, and Bannon have gotten a lot of attention over the last week for their comments on Ukraine, but it is quite clear that their position is not representative of most Republicans or conservatives. Vance is just one of five Ohio Senate candidates polling between 10 percent and 21 percent in the GOP primary. Tucker Carlson, like the previous host of Fox News’ 8:00 p.m. hour, has the most-watched cable-news show in television, but it only takes little more than 1 percent of Americans tuning in to win the primetime cable-news race.

Hawley is of course just one senator, but his statement is a pretty strong sign that right now, the winds in the Republican Party are blowing away from Vance, Bannon, and Carlson on the question of U.S. support for Ukraine.