U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) just pinned the blame for the Republicans' lackluster performance in the 2022 midterm elections on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). 

Hawley did so in an exclusive interview that he participated in with Breitbart News at the recently-held Turning Point USA AmericaFest conference.

Hawley points finger at McConnell's leadership

In the interview, Hawley argued that the reason that Republicans - particularly Senate Republicans - didn't do better in the midterms is that Senate Republicans, under the leadership of McConnell, have too often caved to the Democrats in the past two years.

Hawley said, "Listen, if you look at the last just two years in the Senate: Cave to Big Pharma on insulin. Cave to Chuck Schumer on gun control. Cave to the radical left on the climate agenda. That’s the so-called infrastructure bill."

Hawley said that this is "a terrible record." And, he added that, with this in mind, it is no wonder that the Republicans didn't do better in the midterms.

Hawley concluded by arguing that it's time to move away from McConnell's leadership.

"We got to do something different, and we’ve got to give the voters, including independent voters, we’ve got to give them something to believe in us and trust us, and we haven’t done that in the last couple of years," he said.

Background

It's not the first time that Hawley has pointed criticism in the direction of McConnell.

In fact, just after the 2022 midterm elections, when it became clear that the Republicans underperformed, Hawley tweeted:

Washington Republicanism lost big Tuesday night. When your “agenda” is cave to Big Pharma on insulin, cave to Schumer on gun control & Green New Deal (“infrastructure”), and tease changes to Social Security and Medicare, you lose.

Hawley went on to be one of roughly 10 Senate Republicans who opposed McConnell's bid to remain the leader of Senate Republicans. McConnell, however, survived the challenge.

Polls would indicate that Republicans outside of Washington D.C. likely agree with Hawley here.

McConnell currently has one of the lowest favorability ratings of any member of the U.S. government. On average, it is only 23.7%.

McConnell's response

By and large, McConnell has responded to all of this criticism with silence. But, he recently broke his silence in an interview that he did with the leftist outlet NBC News. There, McConnell attempted to shift the blame from himself to former President Donald Trump.

"We lost support that we needed among independents and moderate Republicans, primarily related to the view they had of us as a party — largely made by the former president — that we were sort of nasty and tended toward chaos," McConnell said.