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The Deplorable Mr. Hawley

Plus: Schumer’s gobsmacking political malpractice.

Charlie Sykes's avatar
Charlie Sykes
3 February 2022∙ Paid
65
(Photo by Graeme Jennings-Pool/Getty Images)

Because we are living in the dumbest possible timeline, Rudy Giuliani apparently is actually a contestant on the “Masked Singer.” (This is NOT a parody.) Meanwhile, because we are a deeply serious country that is not at all easily distracted by ephemera, social media is ablaze with rancorous debate and speculation over the performative suspension of Whoopi Goldberg and the unceremonious defenestration of CNN’s Jeffrey Zucker.

Happy Thursday.

I’ll leave it to others to chew over these matters. I thought I’d start instead with the rise of America First’s new Appeasement Caucus, led by the famously pugnacious Josh Hawley.

Hawley has crafted his brand on the idea of getting tough with immigrants, tough with China, tough with simpy liberals, tough with Big Tech, and toughly pro-insurrection. But, as he made quite clear this week, Josh Hawley rather decisively does not want to get tough with Vladimir Putin.

In fact, when it comes to the Russian thugocrat, the fist-in-the-air Hawley is more like:

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