Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) says he is not planning to mount a presidential bid in 2024.
During a brief interview with Business Insider on Tuesday, Hawley was asked if he is planning to run for president in three years. He said, “No, I’m not running.”
Hawley has widely been seen as a likely Republican presidential challenger in the next cycle. Business Insider ranked him in the top ten of Republicans most likely to run for president.
However, as the outlet notes, there are still three years for Hawley to reconsider his stance on a 2024 bid.
The Missouri senator made news late last year after he became the first Republican senator to voice his support for House Republicans’ bid to decertify the electoral votes of states that former President Donald Trump lost in the election, as IJR reported.
He quickly received criticism from members of his party who suggested he was signing on to efforts to overturn the election to boost a prospective presidential bid.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) tweeted, “Internal monologue: ‘I want to be President so I decided to try to get POTUS tweet saying I’m great even though I know this isn’t going anywhere.'”
“But hey… I’ll blame someone else when it fails,'” he added.
Internal monologue: “I want to be President so I decided to try to get POTUS tweet saying I’m great even though I know this isn’t going anywhere, but hey… I’ll blame someone else when it fails.” https://t.co/2YuSFZ1RSk
— Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) December 30, 2020
Former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.) claimed Hawley was “looking for higher office. Maybe he’s positioning for 2024. This is all just political. It has nothing to do on rule of law, has nothing to do with what’s good for this country. It has to do with what’s good for the individual.”
After a mob of violent Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as lawmakers met to certify the electoral votes, his home-state paper The Kansas City Star’s editorial board claimed the senator “has blood on his hands in Capitol coup attempt.”
“Hawley’s actions in the last week had such impact that he deserves an impressive share of the blame for the blood that’s been shed,” it added.
Additionally, seven Senate Democrats filed an ethics complaint against him and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for objecting to certifying the electoral votes.
However, Hawley pushed back in a separate op-ed as he argued that claiming that lawmakers who voted to disqualify electoral votes incited mob is “corrosive and dangerous.”
