Remember when a hot mic captured President Joe Biden muttering under his breath that a reporter questioning him was a "stupid son of a bitch"? Josh Hawley just had a similar faux pas — as the senior senator from Missouri was caught on leaked footage berating a St. Louis news reporter for nearly three cringe-worthy minutes before their formal interview began.
The reporter's sin? He'd tweeted critically of Elon Musk, then joked about whether or not he was sober when tweeting. For that, Hawley proceeded to give him a dressing down, smug grin on his face, for a very awkward two minutes and 56 seconds.
And here's the crazy part. It seems almost certain that it was Hawley's team that leaked the footage.
Never mind that in this footage it's Hawley who looks like a stupid son of a bitch, a pedantic school marm who lectures people and threatens their access while feigning concern about their Twitter manners. And never mind that someone in Hawley's team apparently prepped him by digging through his interlocutor's tweets (as if a senator and his staff shouldn't have better things to do!)LOL: Senator @HawleyMO confronts left wing reporter who had an VERY public meltdown about @elonmusk.
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) March 17, 2023
"You also said that you didn't necessarily do any of this sober...I hope you do our interview sober!" pic.twitter.com/jOwyFbtAma
No, the inquisition — and leaked footage — was apparently payback after KSDK interviewed a professor saying Hawley was "delusional" for his comments on the demise of Silicon Valley Bank.
He'd been humiliated, and he thought he'd humiliate right back by hectoring the reporter and then sending the footage to his pals at Fox News and Townhall.com. Nice guy, that Hawley.
The exchange apparently took place last week with KSDK's political editor, Mark Maxwell. Earlier in the month, after Twitter suffered a meltdown, Maxwell had tweeted, "Does anyone still think Elon buying this site and firing all the experts was a good idea? It's been awhile since I've seen any of his bootlickers brag on how efficient the site is now that Sir Galaxy Brain is in charge."
That apparently offended Senator Snowflake's delicate sensibilities.
"Why all the hate for people who like free speech on Twitter? What's going on with that?" Hawley asked Maxwell during what would normally be pre-interview pleasantries, looking every inch the third grader grasping at seriousness while playing Principal For the Day.
After Maxwell attempted to explain why he was annoyed at Musk, Hawley referenced a subsequent tweet where Maxwell joked that he wasn't necessarily tweeting "sober." After pouncing on that with faux-concern, the senator circled back to "bootlickers."
"Referring to people you don't like as bootlickers? You don't do opinion journalism, do you?" he sneered. "When journalists, or so-called journalists refer to people they don't like as bootlickers on a public platform, when they attack folks and then say they don't necessarily do stuff sober, it does tend to get my attention.
"I mean, we give you a lot of access. I just want to make sure you're actually sober and taking this seriously, good Lord in heaven."
Maxwell declined to comment, which is roughly how he handled Hawley's nastiness during the pre-interview chat — attempting to play along for a minute or two before finally saying, "Can we start the interview?"
Undoubtedly, jerks who like to talk about owning the libtards will pretend to eat this one up — it's a journalist who dislikes Elon Musk being taken down a peg! Everyone else may feel a bit queasy. We've known for a time how unlikable Josh Hawley is. What's clear now is how oblivious he is to that fact.
Coming soon: Riverfront Times Daily newsletter. We’ll send you a handful of interesting St. Louis stories every morning. Subscribe now to not miss a thing.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
