Republican senator vows to challenge Electoral College certification of Joe Biden’s victory, gets slammed as ‘enemy of democracy’

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) is being accused by Biden supporters of “threatening” democracy with his newly-announced plan to object on January 6 to the certification of the Electoral College’s vote.

“I cannot vote to certify the electoral college results on January 6 without raising the fact that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws,” Hawley said in a Wednesday statement.

President Donald Trump and his legal team continue to accuse states like Pennsylvania of voter fraud, especially when it comes to their processes for mail-in ballots.

Hawley also blasted social media companies like Twitter and Facebook for trying to sway the election in Biden’s favor, likely referencing the controversial move by the platforms to suppress the sharing of a New York Post story claiming to reveal compromising material taken from a laptop allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. 

The data released by the Post weeks before the election included correspondence that implied the former vice president was involved in his son’s foreign business dealings, something he has long denied. 

“At the very least, Congress should investigate allegations of voter fraud and adopt measures to secure the integrity of our elections. But Congress has so far failed to act,” Hawley said.

Hawley’s decision follows a group of House conservatives pledging to object to Congress’ certification of the president vote in January. He is the first senator to back the effort, giving the Trump supporters more weight in their potential longshot plans as they can now force a debate on certain state’s results by having both members of the House and Senate objecting.

Hawley’s announcement has led to a wave of criticism from liberals, who claim he is threatening democracy by demanding a congressional investigation into allegations of voter fraud, while others saw the announcement as a way for Hawley to give a slight boost to his 2024 chances.

“Josh Hawley is an enemy of democracy, and now he’s going to force every one of his colleagues to go on record as to whether they are as well,” liberal activist Jon Favreau tweeted. 

Despite Hawley mentioning in his statement that Democrats have objected to Electoral College votes in the past, his newly-announced intention has drawn the ire of Democrat politicians, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) who slammed the effort as a “coup attempt.” 

The most surprising reaction to Hawley, however, came from retail giant Walmart. The company's Twitter account slammed the Republican senator as a “sore loser”  and replied to his public statement on Twitter by writing, “Go ahead. Get your two hour debate.” 

Conservative critics have pointed to the store's ties to Chinese suppliers as a possible motive for jumping into the debate as Republicans have become especially critical of China and overseas trade under President Trump.

Walmart is headquartered in Arkansas, a neighbor state to Hawley's Missouri, which itself has over 100 Walmart locations. The store's tweet reply to Hawley has since been deleted.

However, the senator fired back, saying that Walmart “insulted 75 million Americans.” 

After Kyle Plotkin, Hawley's chief of staff, asked Walmart to “explain”  the deleted tweet, the company released a statement claiming the tweet was from a member of their social media team who meant to post it to their own personal account. 

“We apologize to Senator Hawley for this error and any confusion about our position,”  the company said.

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