From driving with a revoked license to calling the widely popular Ukrainian leader a “thug” to accusing his Republican compatriots of using drugs and throwing orgies, Rep. Madison Cawthorn can sabotage himself. At least that’s what his main challengers hope.
“You know, just really bizarre comments, his irresponsible behavior that we’ve seen over the past few months continues to show his immaturity,” Michele Woodhouse, a one-time ally and self-proclaimed “big supporter.” by Cawthorn to .
Woodhouse said she expects a number of sitting lawmakers to officially break from Cawthorn soon and back her in the race.
The pair have a history — when Cawthorn was running from his 11th district to the 13th under North Carolina’s new district map, he called Woodhouse, then the GOP chairman, and encouraged her to run for his seat. But when that card was knocked out and Cawthorn came back to run again on the 11th, Woodhouse didn’t back down and their relationship soured. Despite Cawthorn’s reputation and tenure, Woodhouse is banking on him throwing himself into the ground.
“He lost term when he left the 11th Circuit,” she said. “He quickly realized on the spot that the people of western North Carolina are nobody’s second choice.”
As Cawthorn left the 11th district to run in the 13th, he called then-GOP chairwoman Michele Woodhouse to encourage her to run for the seat he would be vacating
When the new district map was struck down in court, Cawthorn returned to the 11th District, but Woodhouse refused to back down
Elected at just 24, the Republican real estate agent-turned-congressman from North Carolina quickly became a rising star within the conservative movement and garnered the favor of former President Trump.
But after a string of left-field remarks, attention-grabbing antics and clashes with the law, the young GOP lightning rod has slowly stung the nerves of Republicans in Congress.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has repeatedly said that the only incumbent whose re-election bid he will not support is Rep. Liz Cheney. That claim may well be questioned after Cawthorn’s last meeting with McCarthy, where he was reprimanded over the orgy allegations.
“He lost my trust and needs to earn it back. And I have disclosed everything that I feel is inappropriate,” McCarthy told reporters after the meeting. He said further action beyond the stern warning during the meeting could “very well” be taken.
“This is unacceptable,” he said of claims that Republicans use drugs and participate in orgies. “He wasn’t telling the truth… that’s unacceptable.”
But that might not even be his biggest problem.
The North Carolina legislature drafted a new congressional map that left the 11th District, which it currently represents, more dovish than Cawthorn was comfortable with. The congressman moved to run in the 13th District, which included the Charlotte area, but then the courts struck down the new districts map and erased the district he was running in. On February 23, Cawthorn returned to his 11th Circuit race, but trouble was, he had already crowned a successor who would run for his seat.
President Trump endorsed Cawthorn last March
Woodhouse said she expects a number of sitting lawmakers to officially break from Cawthorn soon and back her in the race
As Cawthorn left the 11th Circuit, he called Woodhouse, then-Chairman of the 11th Circuit GOP, and urged her to run for his seat. He even presented her name to Trump, essentially to take the endorsement he had won from the former president.
Cawthorn donated $1,000 to Woodhouse twice, once in August and once in October.
In December, Cawthorn released “Congressman Cawthorn’s Plan for North Carolina,” a graphic that Woodhouse described as “a placemat for kids to color in,” a roadmap that tells every Republican where to run in North Carolina under the new redistribution (he has violating the rules of house ethics). his official seal of Congress on the card.) His name and photograph were placed by the 13th Ward, Woodhouse’s by the 11th Ward.
And when he got back into the running after the court threw out the new card on Feb. 23, Woodhouse said Cawthorn left her a voicemail just moments before sending out a press release.
Woodhouse declined to give up our race after the incumbent returned. So did six other Republicans running in the May 17 primary.
“What I’m hearing from voters is his complete disappointment with his assignment,” Woodhouse said. “Not only did he leave the district to run elsewhere, he also closed three of his four constituent offices.”
Woodhouse says that after Cawthorn’s announcement, she was deluged with calls from members of Congress in DC telling her, “You have to stay in the running.”
“We need strong, stable leadership from the 11th congressional district, and with every misstep that Congressman Cawthorn continues to have, he’s now placed himself in a position where he’s ineligible,” Woodhouse claimed, lawmakers told her by DC. She declined to give names but said she has received calls from lawmakers in the North Carolina delegation and beyond.
Cawthorn donated $1,000 to Woodhouse twice, once in August and once in October
“I think you’re probably going to see some names coming out over the next few days,” Woodhouse told .
Cawthorn’s recent claims that other Republicans invited him to orgies and drank cocaine in front of him may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.
He said during an interview with the Warrior Poet Society, “The sexual perversion that’s going on in Washington … as a kind of young guy in Washington where the median age is probably 60 or 70, I look at all these people — often by.” the ones I’ve looked up to my entire life…then suddenly you’re invited to say, ‘Well, hey, we’re going to have some sort of sexual encounter in one of our houses. You should come,’ like, what did you just ask me to come for? And then you realize they’re asking you to come to an orgy.”
“There’s some of the people who are leading the movement to try to eliminate addiction in our country and then you watch them do a key jab of cocaine in front of them and it’s like wow, that’s wild. ”
“There seems to be a thread we’ve seen since his election: shock and disappointment,” Woodhouse said.
Of the claims: “The question is, is it true or is it a publicity stunt?”
North Carolina Sens. Thom Tillis and Richard Burr have already expressed their frustration.
“I’ve been thinking about the statement, if it’s true then he has a lot of information to reveal. If it’s not true, he’s guilty of untruth,” Tillis said, according to CNN. “I thought it was a silly statement and it’s not the first.”
Tillis then hinted that he thought the North Carolinians in Cawthorn’s 11th Precinct should vote him out.
“At the end of the day, people in the district have to vote for him, and I would ask them to look at his record and ask what he’s been up to since he got here,” Tillis said. When asked what he thinks Cawthorn has accomplished, Tillis said, “Not much, in my opinion.”
Burr, the senior Republican senator from North Carolina, was asked by CNN about Cawthorn’s job performance.
“That’s something his constituents need to find out, but obviously he was embarrassed at times,” Burr replied.
Before the orgy comments, Cawthorn made headlines for calling Volodymyr Zelensky a “thug.” And at the same time, news broke that Cawthorn is awaiting court dates in three counties for speeding and driving around with a suspended license. In January, he cleaned his gun on camera during a Veterans Affairs hearing on Toxci burn pits, and last July he was stopped by Asheville Airport Police for attempting to board a plane with a gun.
On four separate occasions, Cawthorn was charged with bringing a knife onto school grounds during school board meetings.
Woodhouse said those cases are the reason she’s staying in the running. “That’s why we’re staying here, right? Because we need a solid conservative to do the job and keep proving he’s not.’
She said the biggest difference between her and Cawthorn, the two America First candidates in the running, is “maturity” and “stability.”
“Who will be the adult in the room? Who will be the one to go there and do the work in a mature manner based on America First guidelines? Who will do the heavy lifting instead of working on their Instagram profile? she asked.