Madison Cawthorn

In 2014, at age 18, Cawthorn was injured while returning from a spring break trip in Florida. He was a passenger in an SUV on Interstate 4 near Daytona Beach when his friend fell asleep at the wheel and the SUV crashed into a concrete barrier.[11][12] The injuries left Cawthorn partially paralyzed, and he now uses a wheelchair.[5] He accrued $3 million in medical debt during his recovery.[13] His friend's insurance company offered him $3 million to cover his medical treatment, but Cawthorn sued the company for $30 million. A judge later ruled in the insurer's favor. After the accident, Cawthorn was employed as a staff assistant in Meadows's district office.[6]

In the June 2020 Republican primary for North Carolina's 11th congressional district, Cawthorn defeated Lynda Bennett, who had been endorsed both by President Donald Trump and Cawthorn's former mentor,[18] Meadows, who had since become White House Chief of Staff.[19] Cawthorn gained the support of many local leaders and was endorsed by Mark Walker, the vice chairman of the House Republican Conference.[18][20] His victory has been called an upset.[21][22]

Cawthorn is the youngest Republican and one of the youngest members ever elected to the House of Representatives.[21][23] He has said that he would "like to be the face of the Republican Party when it comes to health care."[13]

In 2017, Cawthorn posted an Instagram picture of his visit to Adolf Hitler's vacation residence Eagle's Nest, which he said had been on his "bucket list for awhile".[24][25][26] In the post, he called Hitler Führer, a German term meaning "leader", and the site "supreme evil".[24][27] During his 2020 campaign, the post generated criticism and allegations of far-right sympathies.[24][17] In response, Cawthorn denied being a white supremacist, calling the allegations ridiculous, and said he "completely and wholeheartedly denounce[s] any kind of white nationalism, any kind of Nazism".[8][24][17] The Anti-Defamation League's analyst Mark Pitcavage said he did not see much merit in the accusations against Cawthorn.[24][17] Some Jewish residents of his congressional district expressed concern about the incident, including Esther Manheimer, mayor of Asheville, the district's largest city.[26] Cawthorne deleted the Instagram entry on August 10.[27]

Cawthorn spoke on the third day of the 2020 Republican National Convention.[28] During his election bid, Cawthorn's campaign created an attack website which criticized journalist Tom Fielder, who had produced investigative pieces on Cawthorn and had written favorably about his opponent. The website accused Fielder of leaving academia "to work for non-white males, like Cory Booker, who aims to ruin white males running for office."[29][30] The sentence on the website was later modified to claim Fiedler is "an unapologetic defender of left-wing identity politics".[29] Cawthorn released a statement saying he had intended "to condemn" such political opinion as being "dangerous and divisive. I have condemned racism and identity politics throughout my campaign."[30] Ben Mathis-Lilley, writing for Slate, observed that Cawthorn's apology "convolutedly expressed regret for 'having unfairly implied I was criticizing Cory Booker,' which is notable in that it is not an apology for attacking the journalist in question, Tom Fiedler, as a traitor to his race."[31]

In the November general election, Cawthorn defeated Democratic nominee Moe Davis. He took office on January 3, 2021.[1][32] Upon hearing he had won, he tweeted, "cry more, lib".[33][34][35]

Cawthorn took his seat as U.S. Representative at the start of the 117th Congress on January 3, 2021.[36] Cawthorn intends to use his position to be a messenger rather than a legislator, writing to his colleagues, "I have built my staff around comms rather than legislation."[37]

In December 2020, at a Turning Point USA conference in Florida, Cawthorn said that he would try to contest the 2020 United States presidential election results when Congress counts the Electoral College votes in January, citing fraud; there was no evidence of fraud in the election.[38][39] Cawthorn subsequently used conspiracy theories about fraud to run advertisements and fundraise for himself.[40] He called on attendees to the TPUSA event to "lightly threaten" their representatives. [41]

Before Trump supporters stormed the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, Cawthorn addressed the crowd and said, "this crowd has some fight."[42] He voted not to certify the Electoral College results in Congress[35] and called Republicans who voted to certify the results "spineless cowards."[35] After the riots, Cawthorn denounced the violence and said, "The party as a whole should have been much more wise about their choice of words."[43] Cawthorn later attempted to blame the riots on a "Democratic machine" of "agitators strategically placed inside of this group", amid intensifying calls for his resignation for his part in stoking the riots.[44]

On January 20, 2021, the day of the inauguration of Joe Biden, Cawthorn was one of 17 newly elected House Republicans to sign a letter congratulating him and expressing hope of bipartisan cooperation.[45] On January 22, 2021, the government watchdog group Campaign for Accountability asked the Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate Cawthorn's role in the January 6 Capitol riot.[46][47] The following day, during an airing of CNN Newsroom, host Pamela Brown questioned Cawthorn on his views about the election results, to which Cawthorn eventually admitted that there was no voter fraud. He stated, "You know, the Constitution allowed for us to be able to push back as much as we could and I did that to the amount of the constitutional limits that I had at my disposal. So now I would say that Joseph R. Biden is our president".[48] According to TIME, Cawthorn was "trying to have it both way. One day, he’s preaching about respecting the office of the Presidency and vowing to work across the aisle with Democratic colleagues. The next, he’s trumpeting dangerous conspiracies to right-wing crowds and commentators."[49]

• United States House Committee on Education and Labor
• United States House Committee on Veterans' Affairs[50]

In August 2020, during Cawthorn's campaign for Congress, several women came forward accusing him of sexually aggressive behavior, sexual misconduct, and sexual assault.[7][56][57][58] Katrina Krulikas described an incident when she was 17 and Cawthorn was 19 in which Cawthorn pressured her to sit on his lap and attempted to kiss her forcefully twice, which she resisted. Cawthorn did not deny the allegations, but said, "I did try and kiss her, just very normal, just in a flirtatious way", adding, "If I did make her feel unsafe, I feel bad", but questioned the timing of her allegation.[59] His campaign characterized Krulikas' allegations as politically motivated, which she denied.[58] After Krulikas made hers, three other women made allegations of sexual misconduct against Cawthorn, including forcible touching and kissing.[60]

On October 17, 2020, a group of alumni of the Patrick Henry College released a public letter accusing Cawthorn of “sexually predatory behavior” while a student there, as well as of vandalism and lying. The letter originally had 10 signatories but the number increased to over 150 alumni.[61][62] Cawthorn claimed that most of the signers did not know him personally and his campaign posted a letter of support for him signed by six alumni, two of whom work for Cawthorn's campaign. The letter implied support by former Patrick Henry College President Michael Farris; Farris disavowed the support letter and asked that he not be associated with it.[61]