President Donald Trump is furious that a former MAGA ally-turned GOP rebel may be setting the stage for a 2028 presidential campaign.
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, once a champion of Trump’s MAGA agenda, has seemingly turned coat throughout the second Trump administration, and insider sources told Axios that the president is not happy about it.
“[Trump is] somewhere between frustrated and confounded as to the reason for all this,” an unnamed source described as a “Trump confidante” told Axios.
“[Hawley has] awful political instincts,” another unnamed Trump ally told the outlet. “If this is an attempt to set himself up for success in 2028, it’s a foolish one.”
The Missouri senator, who once raised his fist in solidarity with the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters who sought to overthrow the 2020 election results, has split with the administration’s perspective on a number of key issues, including abortion and presidential war powers.
In January, Hawley initially backed the Democrats in their attempt to limit the president’s military jurisdiction in Venezuela, but swapped his stance after Trump targeted him and four other Republican senators who voted in favor of the resolution.
“Republicans should be ashamed of the Senators that just voted with Democrats in attempting to take away our Powers to fight and defend the United States of America,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Jan. 8, before saying that the senators in question “should never be elected to office again.”
Among his other departures from the MAGA agenda, Hawley was one of the lone Republicans to push for the full release of the Epstein files, and notably critiqued the government’s push to ban states from regulating artificial intelligence.
The senator also started a dark money group last month, called the Love Life Initiative, aimed at promoting anti-abortion rights policies, despite Republican Party consensus having moved away from abortion politics after Roe v. Wade’s reversal in 2022.
Some Trump loyalists believe Hawley’s initiative is a way to drive a wedge between himself and Vice President JD Vance, a self-proclaimed pro-lifer and likely GOP frontrunner for the 2028 presidential race.
“There’s some consternation in the administration about Josh and he’s gonna have to manage that,” a Republican staffer familiar with the situation told Axios. “But if Josh’s goal is to put some daylight between him and Vice President Vance for his own branding, or for future political purposes, you have to say he’s doing an effective job.”
Trump’s focus on the Missouri lawmaker is nothing new.
In July, the president called Hawley a “second-tier senator” after he introduced bipartisan legislation banning members of Congress, as well as executive branch officials, from trading certain stocks.
“[Hawley] is playing right into the dirty hands of the Democrats,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. ”I don’t think real Republicans want to see their President, who has had unprecedented success, TARGETED, because of the ‘whims’ of a second-tier Senator named Josh Hawley!”
The White House and a rep for Hawley did not immediately return requests for comment.
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