Josh Hawley called out for launching family values podcast after fist pump for insurrection

Josh Hawley and his wife Erin have launched a podcast designed to teach Americans how to live better lives by offering a glimpse into theirs outside of Washington, DC.

The Republican senator from Missouri unveiled the podcast This is Living with Josh and Erin Hawley on Monday in a promo video featuring upbeat music and family photos.

“We all the time, day to day, we face those choices … ‘What’s going to be my priority today? What am I going to go after today? How am I going to handle the busyness and competing demands?’” says Senator Hawley, who infamously raised a fist to encourage Donald Trump supporters to fight the certified results of the 2020 election.

His wife Erin Hawley chimes in: “Jesus tells his followers, those who come to him will have life and life abundantly, life to the fullest, so that’s really the idea we’re after.”

“There’s a good life out there, let’s go find it,” Mr Hawley concludes the video.

Mr Hawley said the couple will use the show to share their experience with marriage and raising their three children, ages eight, six and 11 months.

“We thought it’d be really fun to do something together and to maybe pull back the curtain a bit on our lives and our family life and just the day-to-day living that we do,” he told Fox News.

"It’s not a political hot takes show, it’s not a commentary, but it’s really about our life together."

Ms Hawley added: "It’s about being intentional in marriage and how to raise kids and have that so-called balanced life with career and children and all those sorts of things."

Mr Hawley said that while the podcast itself isn’t political, part of the couple’s motivation for starting it is.

"As conservatives, speaking for myself being in the political arena, I talk a lot about what the left and what the progressives are doing, where they’re trying to take the country, and how they’re attacking, in many ways, the strength of the family," he said.

"What is it I’m trying to conserve?…The answer is it’s about family, things that matter most to us in life. It’s about faith, it’s about the life of community and neighborhood and just daily life that everybody leads but that so many families in particular are making through and working through and struggling through."

Mr Hawley was elected in 2019 and came to be seen as one of the more far-right members of his party after he took part in an Electoral College challenge that became the scene of a violent siege of the Capitol on 6 January.

Several Twitter users reacting to news of the podcast questioned whether it would feature an episode about the insurrection, alongside the infamous photo of Sen Hawley raising his fist in the air in front of rioters.

Others asserted that Sen Hawley should spend more time doing the job he was elected to do instead of promoting himself on the show.

And some critics asked whether the show will be focused on the Hawleys’ life in Missouri, referencing criticism that he resides mainly in Virginia rather than his home state.