Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) over the weekend complained about how unfairly he'd been treated after he helped foment the infamous MAGA mob that stormed the United States Capitol building with his efforts to challenge President Joe Biden's victory.
While speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Hawley insisted that he was just raising questions about the outcome of the election, which Biden won decisively by an electoral vote count of 306 to 232, and was subsequently called mean names.
"I said I want to have a debate on election integrity, and what was the result of that?" he asked rhetorically. "I was called a traitor."
CNN's John Avlon on Monday played a clip of Hawley's speech and tore into him for his self-pitying rant.
"You're not a victim, Senator Hawley!" he said incredulously. "You tried to overturn an election even after an attack on our Capitol!"
Avlon then pivoted to claim that the true purpose of questioning the 2020 election is to justify enacting new restrictions on voting rights.
"Don't believe the hype this is about protecting elections or election integrity," he said. "The reason this matters is at least 253 bills to restrict voting access have been moved in 43 states since the election, and a lot of them use the Big Lie as an excuse."
Watch the video below.