Trump-allied Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) described his experience during the U.S. Capitol insurrection in a New York magazine profile. Cawthorn told the magazine that he believes he and QAnon Rep. Lauren Boebert could have stopped the rioters.
Shortly before the siege by Trump supporters began, Cawthorn was on stage in front of them, urging them on: “My friends I encourage you, continue to make your voice heard because…do we love Donald Trump? But my friends we're not doing this just for Donald Trump. We are doing this for the Constitution. Our Constitution was violated. … My friends I encourage you go back to your states after today. Hold your your representatives accountable. Make sure that they stood up for election integrity and make your voices heard. My friends I want you to chant with me so loud that the cowards in Washington, D.C., that I serve with can hear you.”
Cawthorn described what happened shortly after the siege began.
New York Magazine reports: “In the House chamber on the 6th, Cawthorn sensed something was off. ‘I started to become very aware of Capitol Police,' he said. They seemed to be ‘anxious' and ‘nervous' and ‘moving around a lot.' Soon, he said, a security official ‘came up and said, ‘Hey, just wanna give you guys all a reminder: Everything's under control, but if anything bad should happen, there's bulletproof backing on all these chairs.' And at that point, the Democratic side lost their minds. They just started yelling, ‘This is because of you!'' Still, Cawthorn said, despite the yelling and ‘scattering about' and ‘ten or so members who seemed very vividly, visibly afraid,' he didn't grasp what was happening.”
Cawthorn reflected on the insurrectionists he had ginned up: “And yet for Cawthorn it was also, on a personal level, a missed opportunity: ‘I genuinely believe, had we realized what was going on and sent myself, or maybe Lauren Boebert' — he was referring to the freshman representative from Colorado infamous for her gun fetish — ‘some of these people who are just very recognizable to, kind of, the MAGA crowd; in the wheelchair, I probably would've been better, because it's very easily recognizable. I might've just gone to the front steps.' And there, facing the rioters, he said, ‘I think we could've stopped them.'”
Read the full story here.
The Asheville Citizen Times reported on protests this week calling for Cawthorn's expulsion from Congress: “Protesters gathered outside Congressman Madison Cawthorn's district office in Hendersonville on Jan. 14, demanding his removal from office, citing his role in a Jan. 6 rally before a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol building. Between 30-40 people gathered outside Cawthorn's district office around noon with signs reading ‘Dismantle white supremacy,' ‘Expel Madison Cawthorn,' and more. ‘In order to heal, we need to start with accountability,' said Ashley McDermott, regional organizer with the Sunrise Movement in North Carolina.”
Cawthorn stirred controversy during his campaign after a photo emerged of a visit he paid to a home in Germany once visited by Adolf Hitler.
VICE reported: “In statements on social media, Cawthorn said when he visited Hitler's vacation home, known as the Eagle's Nest, he'd been thinking of the Allied soldiers who'd celebrated the Nazis' defeat there. ‘It was a surreal experience to be remembering their joy in a place where the Nazi regime had plotted unspeakable acts of evil,' Cawthorn wrote on Facebook. Cawthorn also faced controversy in October, after a website run by Cawthorn's campaign described Booker as someone ‘who aims to ruin white males running for office.' Cawthorn said in a statement that his campaign had ‘clarified the language' on the website.”
The NYT added: “Mr. Cawthorn was considered all but a lock to win in November. The district, after all, is solidly conservative, and his personal story was compelling: He was partly paralyzed in a car crash when he was 18, and he presented himself as a fresh face who could bring a new generational perspective to the Republican Party. But news reports soon uncovered a misrepresentation in how he cast his story: He had said that his dreams of attending the United States Naval Academy had been derailed by his car crash, but the academy had actually rejected him before the crash.”
