WATCH: Josh Hawley Questions Reporter’s Blood Alcohol Level in Bizarre Exchange

This week, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), got into a bizarre exchange with a Missouri reporter which culminated with the reporter offering to take a blood-alcohol test.

During an interview with LDSK News (St. Louis) political editor Mark Maxwell, Hawley brought up past tweets from Maxwell that were critical of both Elon Musk and his supporters over Musk’s management of Twitter.

“Why all the hate for people who like free speech on Twitter? What’s going on with that?” Hawley would ask Maxwell. Maxwell would respond that he was unsure what the senator was referring to, to which Hawley started running through old tweets from Maxwell’s account.

A March 6th tweet from Maxwell stated, “Does anyone still think Elon buying this site and firing all the experts was a good idea? It’s been a while since I’ve seen any of his bootlickers brag on how efficient the site is now that Sir Galaxy Brain is in charge.”

Hawley would call the tweet “vitriolic,” a sentiment that Maxwell would actually agree with. Maxwell would however defend his use of the word ‘bootlickers.”

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Hawley would then highlight a reply Maxwell made to another Twitter user who questioned if he was sober.

“I never said I was sober,” Maxwell stated. Hawley responded, “I hope you do our interview sober! hope you’re sober now!” to which Maxwell responded, “I try to. I try to.”

More back and forth over another tweet from Elon Musk then occurred, before Hawley again questioned Maxwell’s sobriety and the discussion turned to blood alcohol tests.

“When journalists or so-called journalists refer to people they don’t like as ‘bootlickers’ on a public platform when they attack folks and then say they don’t necessarily do stuff sober, it does tend to get my attention. I mean, we give you a lot of access. I just want to make sure that you’re actually sober and taking this seriously, Good Lord in Heaven.” Hawley told Maxwell.

Maxwell then responded, “I’m happy to do a blood alcohol test. I have had no alcohol this morning and that was a joke. I just want to clarify. We’ll save the festivities for this weekend when the St. Patrick’s Day festivities take off, but that will be off the clock.”

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