Fox News "Your World" - Transcript: Hawley: Missouri Voters Want Senator to Work with Trump

Interview

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PAYNE: Battling it out in the battleground state.

The race for Missouri Senate is as close as they come, with GOP challenger Josh Hawley leaning Democrat incumbent Claire McCaskill by a slim two-point margin.

He joins me now.

We do have a call out, by the way, for Senator McCaskill, who has yet to respond.

All right, Josh, hi.

Tell us. We got eight days to go. You have got some momentum on your side. How do you see it all playing up?

JOSH HAWLEY , R-MISSOURI SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Hey, we have got a lot of momentum on our side.

And I'll tell you what. We just had Senator Lindsey Graham with us here in the state today, huge crowd to hear about the significance of the Kavanaugh hearings, the attempted smear by the Democrats and Claire McCaskill.

People are still livid about that. And they're just livid about how things have gone in Washington and what these Senate Democrats have done. They're tired of party-line liberals like Claire McCaskill, and they're ready to send somebody new to the Senate.

PAYNE: Are there state-specific issues that you're focused on as well?

HAWLEY: I think the big issue here is what has happened in Washington, D.C., and Senator McCaskill's 12-year record in Washington, 36 years in politics.

She hasn't been independent. She's voting with Chuck Schumer 90 percent of the time against the tax cuts, against Justice Gorsuch, against Justice Kavanaugh.

She hasn't heard anything the people of my state told her in 2016. And that's going to be the decisive thing in this election.

PAYNE: What did they tell her that she missed?

HAWLEY: They told her to work with the president, to support an agenda that will rebuild this country and make America strong again.

And, instead, she has voted against this president on judges. She's voted against him on a border wall. She's voted against him on tax cuts. Every time, on every priority that matters, Senator McCaskill has been with the liberal Democrats and against this president, which is really just to say against what the people of Missouri voted for.

And that's going to cost her.

PAYNE: Josh, if you get to Washington, D.C., what kind of role do you expect to play with respect to healing the divisions in this country?

I mean, it's just mind-boggling. It -- many people say they have never seen it this bad, or, if they did, they would have to go back a few decades.

And a lot of folks are looking to leadership, particularly new young leadership, to sort of help fix this.

HAWLEY: You know, I have to say, I have never been part of the old battles in Washington.

I think we need more people like that, who don't owe anything to anybody in Washington, and who also realize that what unites us is far greater than what divides us.

And I could say that's for sure true in Missouri. In Missouri, we are united by a common way of life, a way of life centered on our churches and on our schools and on our families.

People here want to protect that way of life. They want somebody to go fight for that way of life. And I think we need to raise our voices in defense of it and in defense of the values and traditions that we Americans hold in common and that bind us together.

PAYNE: All right, is there a palpable fear that those rights are being taken away or at least being targeted?

HAWLEY: Oh, absolutely.

I mean, I think a lot of this election is about -- in my state is about fear that our way of life, the heartland way of life, the middle-class way of life is in serious danger.

And it's in danger from people who are taking our jobs overseas, danger from wages that have been too low for too long. And now, when we're starting to see some progress, wage growth finally getting the -- getting going, we have got unemployment at its lowest rate in decades in Missouri, now Senator McCaskill wants to raise taxes and take that all the way.

And I think people say, we don't want that.

PAYNE: Real quick, Josh, when you hear Wall Streeters say they -- speaking for your state, saying they don't like President Trump doing tax -- fighting China, rather, with these tariffs, is that popular or unpopular in your state?

HAWLEY: I think that Missourians want somebody who's actually going to stand up and fight for our workers and fight for our farmers.

We're in a trade war that the United States didn't start.

PAYNE: Right.

HAWLEY: It was started years ago by China. And we need to win it.

PAYNE: Josh Hawley, thank you very much. We will see what happens just eight days away. Thank you.

HAWLEY: Thank you.

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