Will Cain Country - Senator Josh Hawley On Manhood

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

Today, Will sits down with Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) to discuss his new book, Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs.  They discuss the crisis of masculinity in America, and what steps can be taken to solve it without going too far as some social media influencers have. Plus, Senator Hawley addresses some of his critics head-on regarding his role in rejecting Pennsylvania's electoral votes in the 2020 Presidential Election. Tell Will what you thought about this podcast by emailing [e-mail] Follow Will on Twitter: @WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Manhood, the masculine virtues that America needs by Senator Josh Holly. It's the Wilcane podcast on Fox News podcast. What's up? And welcome to Wednesday. As always, I hope you will, download rate and review this podcast wherever you get your audio entertainment at Apple, Spotify, or at Fox News Podcast. You can watch the Will Cain podcast on YouTube. Today, we have a fascinating conversation about men, about manhood, with Senator Josh Hawley.

More on that in just a moment. But I wanted to give you, well, a debate, a hypothetical, a question. I came across this tweet that said the following. It showed a map of the United States with three states highlighted. Those states were Texas. New Mexico, and Louisiana. And the author said, I would put up the cuisine of these three states

against any other in the world. Now, having just traveled back to America from Spain, I think I wholeheartedly agree. I would even say I'll give you Spain and Italy, and I would still take Texas, Louisiana, and New Mexico. But let's keep this debate domestic. I challenge you to come up with any three-state combination. It does not even have to be geographically contiguous. You don't have to do

Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. You don't have to do New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. You can pick and choose from across the United States. I do not think you can come up with a better three-state combination to Texas, New Mexico, and Louisiana. In Louisiana, you've got your seafood, your Cajun influenced, your gumbo, you've got your crawfish. You've got your crawfish. You've got your spices. In Texas, you've got dry rib, brisket, you've got barbecue. You've got Tex-Mex Mexican food. And then, perhaps, the underrated player in this lineup, in New Mexico, you've got, yes, Santa Fe, New Mexican, green chili, Mexican food.

Now, the green chili is highly, highly underrated. If I go to a restaurant and there's anything on the menu that says green chili, I'm probably in. Love the flavor, and they are spicy. of green chilies and I also like you know Santa Fe New Mexicans twist on Mexican food

so you put that all together and I don't think you beat it I don't think there is a three state combination better than Texas New Mexico and Louisiana you can hit me up on Twitter at Will Kane on Instagram see Will Kane

I'm on Facebook you can also email us the show email address Wilcane podcast at Fox.com challenge. Senator Josh Hawley from the state of Missouri has written a new book entitled Manhood, The Masculine Virtues America Needs. He talks about his community, his father, the men in his life, his sons, and the characteristics that are needed by men to overcome

what has become a malaise in the United States with higher rates of suicide and depression, a loss and a sense of purpose, young men playing video games, hooked on prescription, recreational drugs. I, in my humble estimation, find this one of the core bull's-eye problems to be solved in the United States of America. And Senator Josh Hawley has forwarded his entry into addressing this issue of masculinity. I think you'll enjoy this conversation here on manhood with Senator Josh Hawley. Manhood by Senator Josh Hawley. Senator, so great to have you on the show. It's a topic, a subject, which I'm excited about that I have talked about on my own at various occasions. Why is it with something you wanted to write about manhood?

Well, first of all, thanks. First of all, thank you for having me. It's great to be with you. You know, I am a father. I've got three kids, and my two older kids are boys. And really, it was thinking about them and thinking about my responsibilities as a dad to help them become the men that they are capable of being. They got me thinking about this and got me writing about it.

I just think that men of all ages, but maybe especially young men right now, need to have role models, need to have a vision for their life and be told you matter and what you do can change your life, can change the world. Yeah, and it seems to be that message is not making its way through to young men. We, you and I, we all know many of the stats, whether or not it goes to depression or suicide, men simply seem lost today. Why do you think that is? Well, I think part of it is the relentless messaging of the left for decades now, going back at least to the 1960s, where their message to men has been, you are toxic, that to be a man is to make the world a worse place that men are the cause of pick your evil, climate change, systemic racism, bigotry, blah, blah, blah.

I mean, whatever, fill in the blank, right? Men are the root cause of all of it. And so men need to be passive. They need to do as they're told by their liberal betters. That's been the message. And I think for young men especially, it's really disorienting because a young man, you know, he wants to do something with his life. He wants to go out there and leave a mark, leave a legacy. But he's being told at the same time, oh, no, no, if you do any of that, you're going to make the world so much worse. And so I think you have generations of young men now who are just kind of stuck in neutral. And they're down in their parents' basement and they're watching their screens and they're being good little consumers. And we don't need men like that. We need men who want to take on responsibility.

I definitely agree and think there's been this concern. effort to defile masculinity, to define it as whatever they define as toxic masculinity. And increasingly, whatever they define as toxic is actually some pretty mainstream characteristics of masculinity. But I don't know if I buy the premise that the central attack on masculinity is of a political nature. I find, you know, I have come to believe, and I think you believe as well as I've, as I've read the book, that one of the biggest things missing from humanity, but acutely within manhood, is a sense of purpose. Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? And when you, you said it kind of casually, but I know it's a central thing that you analyze

talking about young men in the basement, playing video games on various forms of either recreational or prescribed drugs. It seems to me that this listlessness, this wandering of men and masculinity has a lot to do with just a sense of loss of purpose to me, maybe even more so than political. Yeah, no, I think that's right. I mean, I think it's cultural, and it's very rude, and I think the politics plays into it, but yeah, the lack of purpose. And if you look at what culturally, and again, I lay this at the feet of the left, but whether it's an academia, the entertainment industry, Hollywood, what they tell young men is that the world has no meaning and their lives have no meaning. Nobody's life has any meaning, right? That's the general message

And so then it's like, well, what am I supposed to do with my life? Well, you know, try to make yourself happy as best you can. I mean, that's the overarching narrative that the left culturally has left us with. Just try to make yourself happy. And the men, they say, the best way to do that men is just entertain yourself on a screen, be a consumer. And I think that, you know, being a consumer, where's the purpose in that? Where's the vision in that? Where's the adventure?

There's no adventure in that. And so I think young men, many of them have bought into this or they just don't know there's an alternative. And it's making them deeply unhappy and it's bad for society. You know, I had this conversation. I live in Texas, Senator. I'm from Texas. I spent 15 years in New York. I still work in New York.

So I have a lot of relationships up there. And I was in New York. It was probably a week and a half ago hanging out with some friends. And I don't remember how the conversation came up. And I will lay my wisdom on this at the feet of my co-host, Rachel Campos Duffy and Pete Heggseth. But this understanding, yes, I think we all in touch. know that life shouldn't necessarily just be about hedonism. But I don't think we've fully understood that that means life is not also just about happiness. You lay this out well in the book,

that this constant pursuit of happiness is a dead end road. And I was having this conversation with a friend in New York, and I was talking to her about this. Like, if you just pursue happiness, it's momentary pleasures that almost always leave you empty. And then, therefore, what is the point of life? The point of life is not to chase happiness, but it is to chase happiness. But it is to chase purpose. And you talk about that, and you talk about it through a Greek philosopher. Tell me a little bit about, is it Epicurious? Yeah, Epicurus, exactly. Here's my basic premise. Here's my argument is that today's left, basically Epicurus is their founding father. What did he say to boil it down, to oversimplify it, but I think to get the gist of it, he said that the self

is God, pleasure is God. So the world doesn't mean anything. There's meaning, there's no purpose out there inherent in the world. So the best you can hope to do is make yourself happy. How do you do that? Pursue pleasure. And if you think about it, that really is the dominant note right now in much of our society, again, especially those institutions associated with the left. Pursue pleasure, fulfill yourself. It's self-everything. Self-fulfillment, self-indulgence, self-care, self-help. And I really think that if you look at some deeper sources, if you look at American history, if you look at the Bible, what you find is, all this focus on self, it really doesn't get you anywhere. The highest form of meaning and purpose

is found in self-sacrifice. It's found in giving yourself away to others. It's found in responsibility. And that's really what the book is about. It's to say to men, leave a legacy. Be a man of vision. Learn how to sacrifice yourself for other people. Yeah, self-identity, self-love. It's June. It's Pride Month. The entire thing is about identity and self-love. We have become a culture that worships self. You know, you're a really, and I don't throw unnecessary bouquets. You're a really smart guy. I know you've thought about things at a deep philosophical level. How do you reconcile that? Like, I would imagine you would have at one time perhaps described yourself. You may still, as a classical liberal, small L liberalism. The American experiment is a lot about

the individual, individual rights, the freedom of the individual, the dignity of the individual. How do we reconcile that, that dignity of the individual against what has become the worship of the self? I think for many, those two are conflated. Yeah, great question. I think you're absolutely right that it's conflated today, but that wasn't the truth for our founders. And by the founders, I mean the whole founding generation, pretty much from like the pilgrims all the way up into the 1700s and beyond, they saw a difference between individualism, which I think is a good thing, and self-indulgence. which is completely different. They wanted individuals to be strong, to be independent, you know, not to be, not to indulge themselves, not to be dependent on the whims of other people.

And they wanted individuals who are capable above all of serving their families, their communities, and their nation. You think about George Washington. You know, what was Washington's highest ambition in life? It was to be a man who was willing to lay down his life for his country, to lay down his life, for his family, for his faith, for what he believed in. That is an individualism that is worth having right there. That is a strength that begins with self-discipline and self-mastery and self-sacrifice and then is able to change the destiny of other people in the world. And to me, the distinction is also that between rights and judgment. So I want the individual to be free, to have the right, to pursue

whatever it is they see as their fulfillment individually. But that doesn't mean that they are free from judgment. And so either external or internal judgment or higher power judgment, that we should be able to have these rights to be free, but those should be constrained by good judgment. What is it that I should be doing? What is it my heavenly father thinks I should be doing? What is my community or my family think I should be doing? Those should all be limiting factors on that individual freedom. Yeah, totally. And I think that if you just tell people that, hey, listen, you're welcome to do whatever it is you want to do, have at it, and there's no right or wrong. You leave them completely adrift.

By them, I'm thinking of young men. I mean, you leave them without any compass, any moral guide. I mean, so, hey, I believe in freedom of the individual. Like, I think that we should have let individuals choose to do what they want to do so long as they don't harm other people. Sure. But that by itself is not going to give you a life of meaning. I mean, that by itself is not going to give you a life of purpose. you're going to have to choose for yourself to say,

oh, hold on now, I'm going to move it myself. I'm sorry. Right. Yeah, right. And it feels like the modern left's freedom that they want to pursue right now. And again, I don't think it's coincidental that I bring this up in a month, Pride month in June, when I think this is largely what the movement has become, where the freedom that is sought is the freedom from judgment.

Don't judge me, bro. Don't, you know, accept me for whatever it is. Whereas, you know, I want you to be free. And, of course, we're accepting children. Actually, let me ask you this question because, look, my politics have evolved over time, Senator, and I think in a way not unlike your own, where I have understood the value and embrace the concept of populism in some ways. And I'm curious, though, if this conversation we're having about limitations on individual freedom is something that you have become in any way less devoted towards as a hard and fast principle. What I mean by that is I was about to say, I'm cool with you doing whatever you want as long as it doesn't implement. impact children, right? We're talking probably pretty specifically about some of our libertine

laws when it comes to drugs, and not all drugs, by the way, or these trans issues. But I'm curious, like you have advocated, for example, that we should put limitations on social media use for people under a certain age. I'm curious, kind of as you've, I don't know if that's tied to sort of your embrace of some tenets of populism, but do you feel like there are places where you've seen the limits in your mind of the embrace of individual freedom? Yes, and I think for me, it's probably more tied to being a father. My oldest is 10 now, and the last 10 years have been transformative for me, just looking at life through the lens of fatherhood and what it means for kids.

And so, you know, I'm of a view that we shouldn't make any apologies for protecting our kids. I mean, there's a difference between if an adult wants to spend every minute of his waking life on social media, I mean, go ahead. I wouldn't recommend it. I mean, I'd say it's a terrible use of your time, but you want to do that, fine. But for a kid, you know, when we know how social media preys on these kids, when we know how they tries to warp their judgment, when we know how it tries to separate kids from their parents and indoctrinate them into so many different unhealthy things, that's different in my view. I mean, that's where there's a reasonable place to say, you know what? Companies, you probably shouldn't be able to target kids. You know, you shouldn't be able to do that. Like, you want to do that to adults. Go ahead. head within limits, but not with kids. So I think being a dad has changed my views on a lot of things, but certainly on this issue. Real quick, as a follow-up on that, you've talked about limiting the reach of social media companies when it comes to children or having kids sign in, showing age of consent. Would you go further? I mean, again, this is what's in the current news cycle. It's a lot of these corporations. I just read this morning about something Nike is doing.

We've, of course, heard about Target. We've seen Bud Light. Do you see other places that you would go, in limiting, I don't know, corporate free speech. I imagine that would be their defense, right, some First Amendment claim on their ability to create certain products. Would you go further than looking at social media companies? Would you look at other companies and limiting their ability to market towards kids? Well, I do think that there should be limits on marketing the kids, and we already have those in the law in various places. Now, it does take Target, since you mentioned that, you know, my view there is that if those companies, if Target wants to go totally woke and they want to push a very ideological agenda and they want to try to sell those

products. I mean, okay, you can do that. I don't think that we should stop them by law from doing that certainly to do whatever they want, but I 100% support the boycotts. You can't tell me as an American and as a dad that I then obliged to buy your products. I'm not going to do that. And I think it's great that American parents are out there saying, no, thanks. You sell what you want, Target, but don't expect me to buy it and don't expect me to endorse it and don't expect me to say, I'm fine with it. Let's get back to your point about judgment. You would sell whatever you want, but don't expect me to say, oh, yeah, I'm good with it. No, I'm not good with it. I'm not going to buy it. And I don't think I'm not going to

recommend it to other people. I think that's the right balance there. And I love seeing all these parents stand up. We're going to step aside here for a moment. Stay tuned. For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for five bucks plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. This is Jason Chaffetz from the Jason in the House podcast. Join me every Monday to dive deeper into the latest political headlines and chat with remarkable

guests. Listen and follow now at Fox Newspodcast.com or wherever you download podcasts. Let me ask you one more on that current news cycle because my mistake was probably picking a hypothetical, although you happily indulge the question when it came to Target. So let me use a specific. Disney and Governor Ron DeSantis, you know, former president Trump has criticized Ron DeSantis, and some others on the right have criticized DeSantis for using the power of the state to take away a privilege from Disney in the state of Florida. Is that, in your mind, an appropriate use of government power? Oh, sure, because listen, as I understand it, and I'm not a Florida resident, and so I don't, people out there who know Florida law can correct me if I get this wrong. But my understanding is, is that Florida historically gave a whole bunch of special privileges to Disney.

You know, at the federal level, to shift to something I know a little bit more, the federal level, we've given special copyright privileges to Disney, and I've introduced legislation to take those away. So I don't think that government needs to be in the business of giving these corporations special privileges, especially when they're out there pushing a highly political agenda. Now, does that mean, we should prevent them by law from doing that? I mean, no, but nor are they entitled to free tax money from taxpayers and free state. stuff from the government at any stage, but especially when they're doing what they're doing now. So I would just say, hey, no more handouts to big corporations. You know, I'm against that. Yeah. Yeah, and I think I know a little bit about what you're talking about. It's that Mickey Mouse copyright has been extended well beyond, I believe, it's original statutory

intent and just rolled and rolled and rolled where he would have gone into common use, but Disney's got this special exception. Hey, okay, so manhood, and I told you at the outset, this is a topic that is interesting to me back to why you wrote this book this has become a topic senator that is on trend in a way um you said you've got two boys your oldest is 10 i take it the other one maybe seven or eight in that age range um that's usually how we space them out right my my oldest is 15 um i have my second they're both boys is 12 they my oldest especially because he now has a phone and he's on social media. He encounters a lot of this stuff, Senator.

Like, he knows who Jordan Peterson is. He knows who Andrew Tate is. There are more... He knows probably who Jocko Willick is. So, like, this idea of thinking about masculine now, it's been important to my relationship with them. Like you, I've thought a lot about it as I've been trying to raise them.

But I'm curious, like, how does your book stand apart in your mind from a lot of messages that young men and fathers that matter are already beginning to get through, for example, some of the names I just mentioned. Well, I love some of the names that you mentioned. I mean, just to take the one I know the best short of Peterson, you know, I think that Peterson's message of responsibility to men of meaning and purpose is terrific. I would say that what I tried to do in my book is to look at a subject matter and source material that I know and that has been personally meaningful to me, and that is

the scriptures, to go back to the faith of our fathers, if you like, you know, to go back to the stories that inspired so many American men over the centuries, the stories of people like Abraham and David, and to go back to those and to tell those stories again and try to say, listen, this is deeply rooted in American history. It is deeply rooted in Western civilization. These are the stories that have formed men for literally thousands of years, and they are powerful stories we should hear again about what it means to be a husband. and a father, and a warrior, and a builder. So that's what I try to do in the book.

And, you know, I also collect stories from my own family in American history. And I hope that it's helpful to my boys. I hope that it's helpful to other young men and fathers out there. And I just think the more we can hold up role models of good, strong men, boy, the more that we've got to work with as fathers and husbands. Hey, you just mentioned a couple of these roles that you talk about in the book. You mentioned six specific roles. You and I spoke about them briefly on Fox and Friends.

I think these are really fascinating roles that you mention as roles men should inhabit in a lifetime. They are husband, father, warrior, builder, priest, and king. Tell me how you kind of centered on these six roles. I think that they are roles that every man goes through and moves towards in his life. And then they're also, they're derived from the Bible. I mean, they're derived from the different stories in the Bible. And the point is that every man is called to live into these. And even if, let's say even if you're not a father,

right now but you can still form the virtues or the character of a father right you can be somebody who can give your life for other people who can vest in other people maybe you're not a husband well but you can learn to be dependable you can learn how to make a commitment you can learn how to be counted upon and so on and i think that culminating in king you know every man is called to be somebody who can use the authority that he has in his life whatever it may be his influence can use that to bring order to bring stability to bring peace and to bring flourishing to other people in his life. And I think every man wants to do that, wants to be able to have that kind of influence. So I walk through those roles. I tell stories about them. And then I just

try to help men to see, hey, cultivating the character, forming the character of your life is really what unlocks your destiny. You want to have influence in your life? Form your character. You want to leave a legacy, form your character. That's the real message of the book. We'll be right back with more of the Will Cain podcast. from the Fox News Podcasts Network. Hey there, it's me, Kennedy. Make sure to check out my podcast. Kennedy saves the world.

It is five days a week, every week. Download and listen at Fox Newspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Yeah, and while we're on probably, I don't know, you mentioned the 1960s. So I don't know if we're on sort of a 60-year path of the decline of masculinity. It could be longer. I don't know. But there's been this vast. And as I mentioned, others have stepped into it.

And, you know, I'm curious, I think you do address this. There's a lot of things, for example, that Andrew Tate says, that I like, that I think is very rational and smart. There's also sort of a false machismo bravado in my estimation, I think in yours as well, that has stepped into that vacuum that is feeding young men this, I don't know if we should call it alternative. But if, yes, it is an alternative to the roles you just talked about and the character you just described as a vision of masculinity. What would you say about Andrew Tate? Yeah, I talk about this in the book a little bit. To the extent that Andrew Tate holds up a vision really of toxic masculinity, I mean, this is my critique, is that I think that he buys in too much to the left's view that all manhood is toxic. And there's a part of, I think, of his appeal that's like, yeah, that's right.

Manhad is toxic. And we love it. You know, we're proud of it. Yeah, we're proud to be toxic. We're going to be abusive. We're going to be domineering. We're going to be controlling. I think that's not real manhood.

That is not having the character of self-sacrifice, of self-discipline, of self-giving. So I think in a way, it gives too much to the left. You know, it buys in too much to their terms. So do we want strong men? Absolutely. Do we want men of influence? You bet we do. But we want them to be good men who ultimately can discipline themselves and sacrifice themselves for the good of others.

That is very countercultural, but I think it's what we need. I agree, totally. Do we want strong men? Absolutely. Do we want men that don't get married, which is something I think that he advocates for? Absolutely not. Okay, before we have a little bit of time left. I wanted to ask you about, I was scrolling through some of the, I wanted to see some of the reviews and some of the criticism and what people had to say about manhood.

And I wanted to, even if I don't agree with these estimations, I did want to ask you about some of the critiques. and they're actually pretty consistent and the consistency of the critique we can take in either one of two ways it's a clear failing of the book or it's the group think of those that would criticize either way the the reviews that had a harsh word to say about you basically they all said the same thing so i don't have to belabor it it's i can tell you it came in two forms right their critique is either a a critique on the sort of idea of masculinity just mocking this like what they would call what you and I believe is masculine a caricature. So I'm going to dismiss that one, okay?

And then there's the ad hominem attacks on you, okay? And those also come in two forms. So I want to ask you about both of them. One of the things that those that would criticize you criticize you about is this. They say in the book, you talk about your grandfather who had a farm, you talk about, I believe it's an uncle who poured concrete for a living, but you don't talk about your dad who was a banker. They say that you don't talk about your own Stanford and Harvard education.

The point they're trying to make is you are projecting an image of a blue-collar populist when your actual upbringing wasn't that you're an elite-educated guy who, I don't know, I don't know your banking background, your father's banking background. So I don't know. If you were middle class, if you were upper class, I don't know, but it doesn't matter to me. The point is the criticism is one that you are not projecting the actual image of your life forward as you write this book. Yeah, I would just say to that that the book isn't about me projecting an image. at all. It's amazing how these people are so obsessed with politics and image. And I guess it's how they live their lives. The book isn't about me. So I'm not trying to project an image of me. I'm trying to tell stories about the Bible and other people who are great role models.

And if the criticism is, oh, Josh, you're not a perfect role model. Well, hey, yes, guilty is charged. I mean, that is absolutely true. If the criticism is, you're not perfect or you haven't lived up. I'm sure I haven't. And in fact, I tell some of the stories in the book about times when I thought to myself, man, I screwed that up as a father, you know, or I didn't do that right as a husband. So, you know, that's for sure true. I do want to, you mention my dad. I just want to hook into that, though, for a second. I do talk about my dad in the book. I'm very proud of my dad and very proud of the legacy he left me. He's still alive. I don't make it sound like he's gone. I love you, dad. I'm glad you're still there. But, you know, listen, I just, I am, I'm so grateful to him

and to my mother and to the upbringing I had, which was in a little town in rural Missouri, in Missouri, and I talk about that, some of the book. And, you know, I mean, people could say what they want, like me or dislike me. But I just think at the end of the day, we need to be willing to say to men that here is the truth about being a man. Here are the roles that we're called to. Here are the men who've done it well. And if people want to attack me for doing that, fine.

That's fine by me. How big is Lexington? It's 4,800 people. Oh, it's small. It's small. Oh, yeah, really small. No, it's great. It's a great.

It's a small town, and it was a, my dad was a, yeah, it was a small town banker there. My mother was a public school teacher before I was born. And it really, that community, you probably get this in the book, that community, it's a face-to-face community. That way of life really shaped me. And I come from, you know, multiple generations of small-town folks. And listen, I don't, I'm not saying that small-town people are better than anybody else. But I do think that some of the values and ways of life that are preserved. in our rural areas and our small towns, and I represent a lot of them in the state of Missouri,

I think those are pretty darn good. So, you know, I'm not going to pull any punches about defending them. Hey, our backgrounds are a little similar in that way. Look, I'm from a small town named Sherman, Texas. It was about 30,000 when I was growing up, which is bigger than Lexington, but still on the rural small town scale. And my dad was an attorney in town. But it's a face-to-face, as you mentioned, town. And what that means, I think, is instead of being ensconced and wealthy enclaves, where all you ever see is people of your same socioeconomic background or even, you know, blue-collar versus white-collar background, you see everybody and you understand the dignity of every kind of work.

And so in just joining you in your rebuttal to that, is I do think blue-collar work has been denigrated. And maybe where you grew up where I grew up gives me the ability to see that it should not and the dignity inside of that type of work, but also inside of being a banker or an attorney because it's about the character that you bring to that work. Absolutely. I'm an attorney. I mean, you know, listen, I'm married as an attorney. So, you know, I mean, so that's a fact.

And I'm glad I am. I hope I've used those skills to the best that I can. But I want to pick up your point about blue-collar work. This is something, and the left doesn't like talk about this, because their policies have helped denigrate blue-collar work. They have helped to send those jobs overseas. And their general disdain for people who do not have the elite education that they so value, that the left so values, you know,

They are, listen, the Democrat Party now is a party of elites. It is highly educated elites. So they hate it when you talk about blue-collar work. They hate it when you defend a blue-collar life. And they always go into, you know, to defensive mode and attack mode. And I think it's very telling because these are the people who say that if you don't get that four-year degree and it's not from the right college, basically you're not worth much in life. I mean, that's their message and has been for decades now. And I think we need to say, hold on, that's not right at all.

shouldn't have to go to an expensive four-year college in America to get a good job. And you know what? Somebody whose goal in life is to get married, have a family, work a job, contribute to his church, coach the Little League. That is a great life. And we should say those people, we need more of those men in the United States of America. Absolutely. Here, here. Okay, the one other criticism, I mentioned there were two, and they were both ad homonym. The other criticism won't be unfamiliar to you, and that is about January 6th. And they talk about the picture with you with the raised fist, and then they show the edited video, which we all know, or we don't all know, we should all know, was edited, very tight clip, but the point they try to make is you speak about

courage and you speak about manhood, and on January 6th, their argument to you, and this is what I want to allow you the opportunity to respond to is, you did not exhibit those characteristics, that you stood in front of a mob and then ran from the mob, the consequences of something they suggest you fomented. Now, the reason I want to bring that up, you know, I told you there's a bunch of people that wrote this stuff, you know, the intercept said it maybe the most succinctly, but they said, they called your run the sprint of self-preservation, right? So they're casting you as not courageous, but in the mode of self-preservation in this moment on January 6th. And then they say, the reason that you think you can get away with it is that you live in a self-contained fantasy world where people like me don't hold people like you accountable to those questions. So here am I asking you their question when they're not here present.

And I want to get your response to this, that your actions on January 6th are direct rebuttal to your message in manhood. Yeah, I would say a couple things. The first is that I regret nothing that I did on January 6th, taking a stand for election integrity, which I did, filing an objection in particular to the state of Pennsylvania's electoral votes, which I did, I would absolutely do over again. nor do I regret being out there with the demonstrators. They were not a mob. It was not a riot when I was out on the plaza,

that famous picture that's in the Capitol Hill Plaza right in front of the House of Representatives. They were not rioting. They were demonstrating peacefully, which they have every right to do. This was like 1130 in the morning. So I don't regret that at all. And I totally will defend their right to be out there and to be protesting. As to the fantasy piece of it, it is a total fantasy that I ran from

mom as you as you point out the video is fake they edited they edited the video they scrubbed it they imposed a a different narrative on it uh and so it's totally false and it's been totally disproven what you see is the capitol hill police moving the senate the whole senate all of us from one room to another in the capital and so if you watch the video you'll see every single senator go by you'll see the capital police tell us to please hurry up so they can they can get us from the Capitol Chamber over to a holding room. So, you know, I mean, that is the truth. It's a total fantasy.

But I have to tell you, though, I kind of love it because I am flattered that they spent, they hired a Hollywood producer, or maybe it was a news producer. They spent cops of time and money editing this video and coming up with a fake narrative all to try and hit me. I think it's weird. But, you know, I also think it's funny. So, you know, again, you can criticize me all you want, but I do not regret. at taking the stand that I did on that day, at the end of the day, and I do mean the end of the day, is

nine at night or something, is when we finally got to go back into the chamber. That's when I filed my objection. So I didn't change my mind, and I didn't back down, and I'm not going to apologize for it. So, sorry, lives. I appreciate you addressing that today. I appreciate you addressing both of those criticisms of the book and the past day. Okay, let's end on this. So, Senator, you know, I think that probably, you know, I hope, I try to keep my ambitions in check, my own personal ambitions in check and remember that the most important things that I'm doing on this earth are raising those two boys of mine, trying to be a good husband and uphold the values that someone much bigger than me expects of me on this earth. I really do think that, I hope that

I can remind myself of that in every choice that I make. What is it right now, like if you're talking to that Blase, is Blaine or Blaine? One of them, the two sons names. Yeah, Elijah and the other. Elijah's my older boy and then blaze and so we don't leave her out your daughter's name as well Abigail my baby there we go okay but since the book is about manhood for for Elijah and blaze what is the main thing like as you is as we leave this interview that you hope the hope the one characteristic that you hope that you can help I think we're um we're gardeners I guess you know we're trying we don't we don't control it we just do our best to to nurture it into whatever it's going to be What is the one characteristic you hope you can nurture in those two boys?

Oh, I hope that above all they will be men who will sacrifice their lives with the good of others, that they will live in a self-sacrificial way. Listen, as a Christian, I think that's what we ultimately see in Christ, a man who gave himself up for the world. And I think in our own small ways, you know, we are called to imitate that, to be part of that, where we live for other people, where we sacrifice our interests, our good, our pleasures, we discipline ourselves in order to draw others forward to what they can be. And I hope my boys will be far better at it than I am. You know, I hope that they will be better men than I am.

I often say that I want my ceiling to be their floor, you know, in terms of their character. I want them to be better men, better husbands, better fathers. And I'm going to try to do everything I can to help them become the men they're meant to be. Senator Josh Hawley, manhood. It's an important message in a really good book. Thank you so much for being with us today. Hey, thank you so much for having me. There you go.

I hope you enjoyed that conversation again with Senator Josh Hawley. Check out the book, Manhood, The Masculine Virtues America Needs, Wherever You Pick Up Your Books. I'll see you again next time. Listen ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcast, and Amazon Prime members. You can listen to this show, ad-free on the Amazon Music app. inviting you to join me for Fox Across America where we'll discuss every single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas. Just kidding. It's only a three-hour show. Listen live at noon Eastern or get the podcast at Fox Across America.com.