Hawley skewers his fellow Republicans for failing Trump

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., delivered a withering critique of his own party on Wednesday, asserting that congressional Republicans are failing to help enact the agenda that President Donald Trump ran on.

“Congress really has to act,” Hawley told Semafor’s Burgess Everett at the Architects of the New Economy event. “I think you’ve seen a Congress that has not been as enthusiastic about his agenda as I would like.”

Hawley took particular issue with his party’s lack of action on rising health insurance premiums, and declined to rule out supporting Democrats’ plan to extend enhanced Obamacare subsidies when the issue comes to a pivotal vote on Thursday.

“I think we need to do something on premium costs,” Hawley said.

And he knocked his party for showing little interest in reaching a compromise with Democrats on health care costs, saying that at “the leadership level, there has been zero appetite” for that.

Hawley even cited a moment during Senate Republicans’ recent breakfast with Trump, when he said the president told the group they would get “killed” in the midterms if they didn’t do anything about health care costs.

The Missouri Republican ticked off several areas where he thought Republicans should work with Democrats to enact policy, including raising the minimum wage, strengthening labor laws, and capping prescription drug prices.

He offered praise for progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., at one point commending the book that Warren wrote about the challenge facing middle-class families, The Two-Income Trap.

“I think that there are deals to be had,” Hawley said, adding that he wanted to “blow” up the typical partisan paradigm in Washington.