When the Capitol was breached, forcing lawmakers to take shelter behind wooden furniture and in crudely barricaded offices, Cawthorn called into conservative talk show host Charlie Kirk’s live podcast, where he suggested that his wheelchair allowed him to carry “multiple weapons” and entertained a radical conspiracy theory that the riot was carried out by actors planted by the left. “This crowd has some fight in it!” he said, gesturing out to the crowd with one hand while his other one gripped a microphone. 6 riot on the Capitol-in which an angry mob did, in fact, come after members of Congress- Cawthorn again addressed an agitated crowd just south of the White House, this time commending them for their pugnacity. “Call your Congressman,” he said to the young people, offering them a script: “Say, ‘You know what? If you don’t start supporting election integrity, I’m coming after you, Madison Cawthorn is coming after you. Less than three weeks before pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol, resulting in five deaths, then-Congressman-elect Cawthorn delivered a speech at a Turning Point student summit in West Palm Beach, Fla., urging thousands of mostly unmasked young conservatives to “lightly threaten” their representatives. Cawthorn, meanwhile, has offered a more measured-even contradictory-message, depending on who’s listening. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who embraced QAnon and wore a Stop The Steal mask on Capitol Hill. Lauren Boebert, who tweeted the movement of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a rioter allegedly stalked the Capitol with zip ties, and fellow newcomer Rep. Though the gun-toting, Twitter-wielding freshman is a Trump acolyte, both in his political views and personal positioning, he has differentiated himself from his similarly hardline fellow freshmen, like newly-elected Rep. As the Trump era ends, the Republican Party is struggling to chart a future course in which it both retains the support of Trump’s expansive base, while jettisoning the controversial former President.Ĭawthorn’s potential power, as a rising Republican star, is rooted in his apparent ability to navigate this tight rope. While offering different messages to different audiences is hardly unique inside the Beltway, Cawthorn’s brand of shape-shifting is emblematic of this broader moment in national politics. The next, he’s trumpeting dangerous conspiracies to right-wing crowds and commentators. One day, he’s preaching about respecting the office of the Presidency and vowing to work across the aisle with Democratic colleagues. Newly elected 25-year-old Congressman Madison Cawthorn has taken a different approach: he’s trying to have it both ways.
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