Interview with Josh Hawley, candidate for U.S. Senate

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Sen. Josh Hawley, 44, will represent the Republican Party in the race for one of Missouri's U.S. Senate seats. Hawley won the race for his Senate seat in 2018, defeating Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill.

Lucas Geisler: What made you want to run for this job?

Josh Hawley: Listen, there's so much that needs to be done. We've got to close the border. We've got to reopen American energy production. We've got to get our jobs back from China. We've got to protect our farms. I mean, I just think the country has been brought to the brink of ruin, to be honest with you, in the last four years. And the question in this election is, are we going to go in a different direction? Or are we just going to double down? My opponent wants to double down on every failed Kamala [Harris] policy. I think we need to change course.

Geisler: As far as health care goes, what's your plan? How do, in Congress, how do you get it to move in the direction you want to see?

Hawley: Well, what I've done is work across the aisle with, for instance, Raphael Warnock from Georgia to cap insulin prices, I've introduced legislation to cap the price of prescription drugs. My view is this -- these big pharma companies are charging us three and four times more than they're charging people in Canada or Europe or elsewhere. And my view is, hey, if they could set their prices, but they shouldn't be price gouging us. So I've introduced legislation that would cap the price of prescription drugs. To me, we've got to get those costs down. Big Pharma is fleecing us and we shouldn't let them do it.

Geisler: What's your position in this state on Amendment 3 the voters will be deciding on? And generally, how do you deal with the issue of abortion or reproductive health care on a federal level?

Hawley: Yeah, well, at the federal level, my view is that I don't support a federal ban on abortion. I think that this is an issue that should be left to voters. I do support reasonable limits, partial-birth abortion, I think there should be a limit on that federally when the baby is pain-capable. These are things that overwhelmingly are supported by the public. And beyond that, we need to let people in the states vote.

So I think it's good that we're voting on Missouri. I think the Dobbs decision was right because it returns the issue to the people and their elected representatives. That's where it belongs on Amendment 3. I'm not going to vote for it. Listen, I'm pro-life. I support exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother. I vote for that. That's not this. This is, not only would be nine months, all nine months, abortion on demand, taxpayer-funded, but even worse than that, it's not confined to abortion. It would allow transgender surgeries on minors without parental consent. It would overturn Missouri's law on that. I'm not going to let that, that has nothing to do with abortion at all. So no way. I just can't support that.

Geisler: What programs do you see working either federally or in the state when it comes to crime, reducing crime, preventing crime, that you'd like to expand or even invest in further?

Hawley: Well, I tell you what works on crime is locking up criminals. And that's what we should be doing. And that's what this administration and my opponent don't want to do. Get this. My opponent is opposed to immunity for police officers, qualified immunity. He wants to take away qualified immunity from cops. This would mean that criminals could sue cops. It's bad enough we've let all these criminals out of jail. Now we’re going to let them sue the cops? It's insane. That's his position. It's Kamala's position, too. I've introduced legislation to increase prison time, to increase what are called mandatory minimum sentences. So some guy commits a crime, particularly if it's a crime of violence with a gun, he ought to do the time. There shouldn’t be early release. There shouldn't be these slaps on the wrist. Put these people in prison. That's the best thing that we can do. And by the way, we ought to give cops a pay raise. I've introduced a bill that would give every cop in Missouri and around the country a pay raise. And we put 100,000 new cops on the street. That's the kind of thing you have to do, not taking away their immunity and letting criminals sue them.

Geisler: Policy-wise, what are the next steps for you, if elected, on the U.S.'s southern border with Mexico? What policy-wise, what what are you trying to do?

Hawley: Well, close it and listen, the president can do that. He needs to do it immediately. And my view is, is that if we can do legislatively, if we have to come out and say "‘"we are going to shut down the border," we're going to say, "if you want to claim asylum in the United States, fine, you can do that. But you've got to remain in Mexico while your asylum claims are adjudicated." End catch and release. What now Biden is taking in all of these folks and he's just releasing them into the interior of the country. This is why we've had police officers assaulted here in this state by illegals, police officers killed here in the state by illegals. Travis Wolf, a 12-year-old boy killed by an illegal, stabbings, carjackings, drugs. We have got to close the border, make people wait in Mexico. I mean, really, we know how to do it. The last president, Trump, had done it and Biden overturned all of it. We've got to get back to what works.

Geisler: Do we need to see a greater action within the United States to try to find and deport people who are here illegally?

Hawley: Yeah, I think what we should do is we ought to follow our law, which says when an illegal commits a crime, we deport them. That's our law. Currently, this administration has not allowed ICE to do it. They have tied their hands. That's one of the reasons we have all of these illegals who are criminals by the administration, by Biden and Kamala's own reckoning. They have allowed 450,000 known criminals across the border. Known. That's absurd. All those people ought to be deported like that. And we ought to say to the folks, listen, we're not giving you amnesty. You need to go home. And if you commit a crime, boom, you're going hungry.

Gesiler: Want to ask about your housing policy, what are the things at a federal level you can get down to help people out with housing?

Hawley: Well, No. 1, I mean, the borders are a huge part of this because the amount of people coming across the border, the pressure that is putting on available housing stock, you haven’t built much in the last three years in this country, thanks to Joe Biden's economic policies. Now you've got all of these illegals. It's driving up the cost of housing, and Kunce is all for it. My opponent in this race is against the border wall and he's pro-amnesty. My gosh, I mean, he wants 15 million. He wants another 15 [million people] in the next few years. We can't do that. It's making everything too expensive. We need to build houses for Americans and those who are here legally. But we've, listen, we've got to control our illegal immigration to be able to get a handle on this.

Geisler: We have two very public foreign conflicts right now, Ukraine and Israel, that the United States and you and your chamber have debated a lot about. What's your position on this? Where does this go for the next six years with Sen. Hawley?

Hawley: So just listen, I just think I'm not willing to give another dime to Ukraine. We spent $200 billion on Ukraine. I think we've got various forms of military support for them on the ground. I think our own leaders are not being honest with us about the state of that conflict. Until we can rebuild our own border, until we can compensate the victims of nuclear radiation in the state of Missouri, I'm not going to vote for hundreds of billions of dollars for Ukraine. I'm just not. I voted against it. I'm not going to vote for more of it.

With regard to Israel, that's a whole different situation. Israel's not asking us to come fight their war. They're asking us to support them as they defend themselves. They have every right to defend themselves. ... Attacks on them on Oct. 7 was a terrorist attack in an attempt to destroy the state of Israel. I stand with Israel 100%. My opponent, he's not only for the war in Ukraine, but he said on Oct. 7 when Israel was attacked, he said, "We need to talk about a cease-fire." No we don't. We need to allow Israel to defend themselves and we should stand with them.

Geisler: Anything you want to add that I didn’t ask about?

Hawley: I don’t think so.