Forget Josh — Erin Hawley is reshaping politics
Josh Hawley might be a senator but Erin Hawley’s legal work on abortion-related cases has transformed the American political landscape. The biggest one is still to come.
Headline after headline after headline refers to her as Josh Hawley’s wife, but “Erin Hawley’s status as a senator’s wife is perhaps the least interesting thing about her,” writes Kathy Gilsinan in this week’s Friday Read. For the past three years, she’s been senior counsel at the conservative advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, where she was part of the team that got Roe overturned.
Now, Hawley is the lead attorney on the most impactful abortion case to come before the court since Dobbs: the effort to ban mifepristone, a drug used in more than half of abortions in the U.S., at the federal level — even in states with abortion protections. “By some accounts, she’s having a greater impact on the law in this country than her lawmaker husband is,” Gilsinan writes.
A conservative lawyer and longtime acquaintance of the Hawleys put it another way: “Josh is a show pony. Erin is a workhorse.”
“Who is Liz Truss?”
Can you guess who said this about former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who held the office for just seven weeks? Scroll to the bottom for the answer.**
Why Arab States Aren’t Helping Palestinians … Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees have fled to the city of Rafah, on Gaza’s border with Egypt, in the months since Oct. 7. But even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatens a ground invasion there, Egypt has not permitted Palestinians to cross its borders — nor have other Arab states. “What’s noteworthy in this entire conflict since Oct. 7 has been the lack of reaction or response from the Arab world,” former U.S Ambassador Ryan Crocker tells Michael Hirsh. “If you needed another example that Arab states are not viscerally concerned about the Palestinians and their fate, this would be it.”
Saturday is the first-in-the-South primary in South Carolina. And while few would give Nikki Haley much of a chance to beat Donald Trump in her home state, it will be the center of the political universe, at least for one day. Here are our tips for keeping your Fritzes straight from your Stroms and sounding like a Palmetto State expert this weekend. (From POLITICO’s Steven Shepard):
— Show off your South Carolina electoral knowledge with some specifics: Trump won all but two of South Carolina’s 46 counties in the 2016 primary. Haley’s home county, Bamberg, went even more heavily for Trump in that race (40 percent) than the state as a whole (32 percent).
— Remind folks that the state’s reputation for dirty politics is well-earned, and it didn’t start or end with George W. Bush and John McCain in 2000. From Lee Atwater to Haley’s own 2010 gubernatorial bid, “whisper campaigns” can be deafening.
— Hitting an election night party? Sharing a little history will go a long way: “South Carolina is crucial. It made Joe Biden, boosted Trump, redeemed McCain and was a salve for Barack Obama after he lost New Hampshire.” Follow up with this bit of trivia: “So who’s the only candidate since 2008 to win the South Carolina primary and not become their party’s nominee? It's Newt!”
— Knowingly share this line: “Trump might be the runaway winner, but where would you rather be on Saturday night: Trump’s watch party in Columbia, or Haley’s in Charleston?”
Republicans Are Making a Mistake on Biden’s Age … Following special counsel Robert Hur’s report that described President Joe Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” Republicans have seized on his record-setting age — he’s the oldest president ever, at 81 — as a major issue in the 2024 campaign. But according to Republican strategist Alex Conant, it’s not going to work. “There is very little evidence that voters actually care about political leaders’ ages,” he writes. “The record is clear, albeit depressing: One is hard pressed to identify a single president, governor or senator who lost reelection because voters thought they were too old.”
Putin Kills the Handsome Princes … After Putin’s greatest rival, Alexei Navalny, died — or more likely was killed — last Friday, Matthew Kaminski, the former editor-in-chief of POLITICO and founding editor of POLITICO Europe, dwelled on a photo of Navalny with Boris Nemtsov, another Russian activist who was gunned down at the foot of the Kremlin in 2015, both of them looking happy, healthy and handsome. Those were exactly the qualities that made them so dangerous to Putin: They looked the part of heroes who could stand against an aging tyrant. “They say authoritarians who survive have a talent for identifying and eliminating the greatest threats to themselves,” Kaminski writes. “To paraphrase Kremlin chump Tucker Carlson, Putin is a very talented man.”
What Was Liz Truss Doing at CPAC? … An ousted world leader made a somewhat bewildering appearance at the annual CPAC conference this week — and no, it wasn’t Donald Trump. Wedged between a conservative activist who says there is “no such thing” as transgender kids and a far-right author who calls Jan. 6 an instance of “police brutality,” former British Prime Minister Liz Truss delivered a speech to a half-empty hotel conference room. Confusion ensued. How exactly did Truss fit in? “I don’t know,” said Matt Whitaker, the former acting U.S. attorney general under Trump, “I have no idea.”
Jake Sullivan’s Revolution … On Tuesday, POLITICO’s own Alexander Ward came out with his new book, The Internationalists: The Fight to Restore American Foreign Policy After Trump, in which he pulls back the curtain on the forces shaping some of the most important issues of our time, from Russia and Ukraine to the withdrawal from Afghanistan and rising tensions with China. We got a sneak peek at the book in this excerpt about national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who’s soured on the old consensus that globalization and free markets were unfettered goods, and is embracing a new philosophy instead: “Bidenism.”
**Who Dissed answer: It was veteran Republican operative R. Gregg Keller, the former executive director of the group that hosts CPAC. Truss delivered a speech at the group's annual conference yesterday.
