Speaking at an Orthodox Union luncheon on Capitol Hill, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said that Iran must be fully stripped of any nuclear capacity. He also vowed to work to revive the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which faces an uncertain path ahead in the Senate after a chaotic committee hearing last week.

“We need what the president said the other day — and I was glad to hear him say it with such clarity — the total, total dismemberment of Iran’s nuclear program,” Hawley said. “We need to strip them of their nuclear capacity, we need to isolate them, we need to put them in a box so firm, in a cage with bars so strong, that they cannot get out.”

Hawley has been seen as a figurehead of the populist movement in the Republican Party, which has generally leaned into an isolationist foreign policy worldview. His remarks suggest a notable degree of unanimity among Senate Republicans on the issue of preventing Iran from having any nuclear enrichment capacity under a potential deal, an issue on which administration officials have sometimes offered mixed messages.

Speaking more generally, Hawley added that the U.S. must make clear to the international community that there will be “no daylight” between America and Israel.

The Missouri senator spoke strongly in favor of the Antisemitism Awareness Act and condemned efforts by Democrats and fellow Republicans to scuttle it in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

“I watched with horror … after two years, that bill finally had a chance to come to a vote in a committee that I sit on, and I watched as my colleagues — some of them across the aisle, some of them on my side of the aisle — add amendment after amendment to try and destroy this bill,” Hawley said. “A sophisticated and, I’m sorry to say, pretty darn successful attempt to destroy this legislation.”

But he vowed that “the fight is far from over” and pledged to “do everything in my power to resurrect that bill” and ensure that it passes through the committee and the Senate.

Hawley also said he spoke privately to the president of Yale University, who was visiting to ask for federal funding, in his office recently. He said he demanded that she offer specific examples of the policies that Yale is implementing to address campus antisemitism, and he ended the meeting prematurely when she failed to do so.

Yale did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) and Reps. Brian Mast (R-FL) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) also addressed the group.

Britt, who chairs the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security, pledged to work on a bipartisan basis to ensure that the Nonprofit Security Grant Program receives robust funding in 2026.