Travis Gettys is a senior editor for Raw Story based in northern Kentucky. He previously worked as a web editor for WLWT-TV and a contributing writer for the Kentucky Enquirer, and he also wrote for the award-winning Sadly, No! blog. He has covered national, state and local politics, breaking news, criminal investigations and trials, sports and a variety of community issues, with a special emphasis on racial justice, right-wing extremism and gun safety.
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough ripped Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) as "sick" for smearing a Biden administration official as ant-Semitic despite his family's history with the Holocaust.
The Missouri Republican clashed with Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas at a hearing over social media comments about the Hamas-Israel war made by a DHS employee, and the "Morning Joe" host bashed Hawley for taking a "victory lap" after the secretary called him out.
"Not only did he smear a Holocaust survivor's son and smear a guy whose family, a lot of his family, was wiped out by the Holocaust, he then put the clip up on his Instagram and says, 'Hawley smokes Mayorkas,'" Scarborough said. "What – in the ovens, Josh? Is that what you're saying, seriously? No shame."
"Then he goes on Fox News, and they do a victory lap about him attacking a Holocaust survivor's son," Scarborough added. "That is sick. That's exactly how they get away with it. People that are watching are too stupid in this case to actually see that he is attacking Holocaust survivors' families. In the middle of the greatest antisemitic campaign against Jews, where there is a war, worldwide war against Jews, he attacks a Jew and is shameless about it. Then he goes on Fox News, and they do a victory lap about it."
Co-host Willie Geist said anyone with integrity would have apologized, but he said Hawley engineered the entire exchange so he could post the clip on social media as a fundraising tool – even after Mayorkas shared his family's tragedy – and Scarborough called the stunt grotesque.
"Would you really, after you learned that his mother survived concentration camp and her family was burned in the ovens of Auschwitz, would you really say, 'I smoked Mayorkas?' Would anybody -- like, it's really – it's sick," he said.
