The right-wing star claimed his friend left him to die in a "fiery tomb." "He was my brother, my best friend," Cawthorn said in his nearly 30-minute Patrick Henry College speech, his voice catching. Luke Ball, Cawthorns spokesperson, says this cruise left from Miami in early 2019 waaay before I ran for Congress according to Cawthorn but two people told me after POLITICO was the first to publish photos of the event that they were on Royal Caribbeans Harmony of the Seas that left Port Canaveral in Florida on Dec. 8, 2019, and that Cawthorn was on the cruise with them. I think the press should be allowed to stay, he said, so people can hear what we have to say. Chief among them was Erwin, the sheriff who had helped Cawthorn from the start. Cawthorn, now 25, exploited his tale of his crash at age 18 for his successful 2020 House campaign. If youre starting to lose track of the numerous pits that Cawthorn has dug himself into, heres a convenient list to refresh your memory: He leaves me in a car to die in a fiery tomb., When Cawthorn was a teenager, he and his friend Bradley Ledford were driving back to North Carolina after a spring break trip to Florida, when Ledford fell asleep at the wheel and crashed. She asked me if I was a motivated person, and I responded yes, and then she said, Good, because this will be the hardest thing youve ever done, he remembered one saying. Cawthorn claimed he was declared dead after the wreck. He climbed out, landed on the concrete and immediately turned around to unbuckle Cawthorn, with whom he pleaded to wake up, he says. Thats not my movement. And Cawthorn traveled, sometimes with his parents, sometimes with his cousin, sometimes with the woman he would marry, to Boston, to Cuba, to the Swiss Alps. Theres no factual basis for this account. Madison Cawthorn was born in Asheville, North Carolina, on August 1, 1995. Madison Cawthorn's divorce just went from boring information to national security concern in about 77 seconds of interview time with the Daily Caller. NORTH Carolina representative Madison Cawthorn was involved in a serious car crash in 2014. He told mothers to raise their sons to be monsters. He disparaged the Ukrainian president. Cawthorn introduced his fiance to the public in atweet from October2020, describing Bayardelle as an anesthesiologist assistant and a CrossFit athlete. He needs to grow up," said John Fredericks, a syndicated pro-Trump radio host . Cawthorn in a tweet . However, Bennett did not receive the required 30 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff and Cawthorn won the June runoff overwhelmingly. Erwin was in line to be Cawthorns district director until Cawthorn in the aftermath of his victory called Erwin a coward and a little bitch., Ive seen this through the years, but not to this degree, because people I think just dont have the trauma that he has., George Erwin, retired Henderson County sheriff, The disagreement began, Erwin said, when he wanted an older, more experienced woman to be hired for a position in the district office, and Cawthorn wanted a much younger woman instead. Rep. Madison Cawthorn says his fellow lawmakers have invited him to take part in orgies in Washington and snorted lines of cocaine right in front of him. Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation. Cawthorn has cast himself as a standard conservative Christian Republican, though his tone has evolved. Marrying Cristina Bayardelle, now Cristina Cawthorn is the greatest honor, privilege and adventure of my life," he added. One night late last month at the Lambuth Inn, a Christian retreat on Lake Junaluska, he was absent at the Haywood County GOPs forum for the candidates running for his seat. Cawthorn had been sleeping in the passenger seat, reclined back with his legs on the dashboard. In the course of the deposition, Cawthorn recounted for attorneys the hazy mental snapshots of what little he could recall from the days and weeks after the accident. "So I took my shirt off and wrapped it around his leg and then just kind of stayed with him until the paramedics got there.". He had a fundraiser at a restaurant in Hendersonville on Wednesday. | That didnt mean he was recovered. This week Cawthorn tweeted a prebuttal to this story. In the fall of 2016, he enrolled at Patrick Henry College, a school in Loudoun County, Va., with fewer than 400 students that exists to glorify God and prepare Christian men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture. The Saturday of Thanksgiving, a few weeks after Trumps election, Cawthorn struck a pose in front of the U.S. Capitol. In a 2017 speech, Cawthorn said that Ledford left him "to die in a fiery tomb," however, Ledford publicly disputed this in 2021 saying that he pulled Cawthorn from the wreck once he escaped the car. After working as a low-level staffer for former Rep. Mark Meadows . Ill probably never be able to procreate. Hes very unwell, said a Republican strategist familiar with Cawthorn. Even in late October, speaking with a reporter from the Hendersonville Lightning, Cawthorn sounded totally different from how he sounds today. The . "It hurt very badly that he would say something as false as that." A former friend of Rep. Madison Cawthorn said the right-wing lawmaker lied about a car wre. I have experienced more pain and more suffering than the overwhelming majority of people go through, he told the Washington Examiner. Subscribe today and get a full year of Mother Jones for just $14.95. Months after he called them thugs, he said the insurrectionists in jail were political prisoners. Months after he said the election was not fraudulent, he said, If our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen, its going to lead to one place, and its bloodshed. In the midst of redistricting he tried to shift to a district that would have stretched east to the much larger Charlotte market before coming back when the maps were shot down. In October of 2017, in a second deposition in a separate accident-related lawsuit, Cawthorn admitted under oath that what he had said in his first deposition about having been accepted to Harvard and Princeton wasnt true. Cawthorn eventually attended Patrick Henry College, a conservative university in Virginia that typically enrolls between 300 and 400 students, where, by his own account, he mostly received Ds before dropping out. Tell me, one of the attorneys said to Cawthorn, just sort of what you have been doing, you know, on a daily basis, since you got back to North Carolina., Well, sir, he said, I think its mainly just trying to figure out what I want to do with my life., If you finish your degree at some point in political science, do you plan on going into politics?, Thats the plan, sir, he said. Madison Cawthorn posted a picture of him in the hospital surrounded by his medical team on July 19, 2016. Even in his part-time capacity, according to a fellow member of that staff, he didnt do much. A car accident put me in a wheelchair and dashed my hopes for a future. Gripping reads, smart analysis and a bit of high-minded fun. Most seriously, though, in his short time at PHC Cawthorn established a reputation for predatory behavior and gross misconduct towards our female peers, taking them on joy rides to secluded areas where he locked the doors and made unwanted sexual advances, according to an open letter 148 former students wrote and signed. Cawthorn has implied that as a result of the accident, he was unable to follow through on his dreams of attending the US Naval Academy. Police stopped him for driving with a revoked license (again). The helicopter to the hospital with what the Florida Highway Patrol report called life-threatening and incapacitating injuries. We concede that he does often get applause.. Amanda Greene for Politico Magazine, You dont just wake up being paralyzed and go through a really hard time and then all of a sudden youre better, a friend of Cawthorns told me. He was one of the contestants, but he emerged as the winning star, said Melissa Burns, a woman from Tennessee who was on the cruise and at the show. Mark Meadows, then the White House chief of staff, speaks to Cawthorn, then a candidate for his former congressional seat and a former part-time staffer in his office, before a Trump speech in Mills River, N.C., on Aug. 24, 2020. You said you cant procreate, the lawyer continued. Republicans from the mountains to Raleigh to Washington finally had begun to think enough was enough when he accused his Capitol Hill colleagues of participating in orgies and doing key bumps of cocaine. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. His campaign has more debt than cash on hand. Youre not part of my party, he told Olivia Nuzzi of New York. When he first ran for Congress, Cawthorn spoke up for reporters who other Republican candidates wanted to kick out of a public forum. He was no longer living with his parents but in an apartment in Asheville with Stephen Smith, a slightly younger distant cousin who was becoming his best friend and primary helper who provided the assistance Cawthorn needed in part because of thick carpet that made it hard to wheel around. From parading at a Holocaust site, to allegedly harassing women, they're all awful. Listen to the author discuss this piece with our Editor in Chief on the Lawfare Podcast. The consequences are mounting. A scathing public letter signed by more than 150 of Madison Cawthorn's former schoolmates at Patrick Henry College alleges that the Republican candidate engaged in "sexually predatory behavior," vandalism and lying as a student and is unfit for congress or as a representative of the conservative Christian school.. He assumed office on January 3, 2021. Well before he ran, won and took office, in his wrenching messages to Ledford that are part of public court records, Cawthorn expressed understandable bitterness, that once he was something, and all of a sudden he was not and so what was he now? Depending on the level and severity of a cervical spinal cord injury, it can affect major body functions like breathing and mobility from your neck down. Phone to phone, the teens bantered back and forth about getting together, but after a while it was clear Cawthorn didnt want to. Sign up for the newsletter. ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- We don't usually think of the gym as a place with nostalgic value.As Madison Cawthorn of Hendersonville goes through the motions at Reuter. Politically he might already have lost. His marriage amidst all this lasted less than a year. LGB legends, the comment read. Can you give me, asked the attorney for Ledfords fathers company, a list of 10 things that you enjoyed doing before that you cant do now?, Yes, sir, said Cawthorn. I think the press should be allowed to stay, he said, so people can hear what we have to say., Three wooden crosses and a sign for a gun show are located a few miles from Cawthorns residence. In interviews with outlets ranging from local newspapers to Jewish Insider to CNN, Cawthorn expressed regret. RALEIGH, N.C. U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina told supporters he thought Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a "thug"a comment that runs counter to the overwhelming . Since his election in 2020, the 26-year-old Republican has been a veritable prodigy of controversy, somehow even managing to alienate members of his scandal-plagued party both in DC and in his home state of North Carolina. In the end, Cawthorns team was declared the winner., But Cawthorn in particular stood out. The Cawthorn campaign attempted to counter this letter with a Facebook post saying that he had the endorsement of a significant number of PHC alumni and former students. The post was signed by six people, two of whom worked on the campaign. In November, when the by-then-Trump-endorsed Cawthorn won, he sent that night a very Trump-esque, red-meat tweet. But what happened to him and is he in a wheelchair? He was, as Matt put it, the disabled guy who got applause., We concede that Madison is a winner and a star, Ball told me in an email this week. As a child I thought I wanted to rule the world, he said in an Instagram post. I feel like he thinks that he could have done so much more had the accident not happened, said Hunter Clark, a former intern in Cawthorns district office. Cawthorn did not immediately respond to a request for comment from HuffPost. . He has not done it for Cawthorn. I read somewhere, said one of the attorneys toward the end of the day-long deposition, that you wanted to be a congressman?, Cawthorn speaks with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and supporters after a "Get Out the Vote" rally with North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis in October 2020. He has become one of the most vocal peddlers of the claim that the presidential election was fraudulently stolen from Donald Trump, another lie. In 2014, Cawthorn, who at the time was 18, was injured while returning from a spring-break trip from Florida. In 2014, a car accident shattered his ankles, pelvis, and back, leaving the 18-year-old Cawthorn paraplegic and suicidal. My friends, he said, I want you to chant with me so loud that the cowards I serve with in Washington, D.C., can hear you. During the storming of the Capitol, he called into the radio show of right-wing talker Charlie Kirk and said he believed some of the ransacking mob were antifa and people paid by the Democratic machine.. The winners of Quest, Colleen McDaniel of cruisecritic.com told me, often are simply the most eager to be the most outrageous. They asked the state elections board to disqualify him under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment for having "engaged in insurrection" by helping to incite . On Friday, at a meet-and-greet at a gun store in Cherokee County, a supporter positioned his pickup truck to block the view of a photographer from POLITICO. Take Madison Cawthorn. Cawthorn worked as a staffer in former White House chief of staff Mark Meadow's district office from 2015 to 2016. He was pulled over going 89 miles per hour in a 65-mile-per-hour zone in Buncombe County. All of this comes on top of multiple women in multiple places accusing him of sexual harassment, his role in the insurrection on Jan. 6 of last year, his growing catalogue of alarming provocations on social media and on the House floor, and his politically imprudent decision to announce he was switching districts only to reverse course. North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn , a young rising star in the GOP, is facing renewed sexual misconduct allegations from women who say he put them in uncomfortable situations while in college . "I remember his leg was pretty badly cut from the accident and we were sitting on the side of the interstate," Ledford recalled. The onetime best friend of Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) said the congressman lied about certain details regarding the car accident that left him wheelchair-bound. Terms of Service apply. What Was Madison Cawthorn Accident Madison Cawthorn Spinal Cord Injury Level Explained Madison Cawthorn, an American Politician who has served as the U.S. representative for North Carolinas 11th congressional district since 2021 has been in a wheelchair for eight years now after he was involved in a car crash in 2014. Screenshot from Instagram, Clearer for Cawthorn were the first conversations he had with his therapists once he was in Atlanta. Newly elected 25-year-old Congressman Madison Cawthorn has taken a different approach: he's trying to have it both ways. His average grade in most classes was a D, he later said in a deposition. But his stunt last night proves that he has no place in Congress. Madison Cawthorn, the youngest member of Congress whose two years in Washington were marred by a steady stream of embarrassments that exasperated GOP leaders, lost his seat in a Republican primary contest on Tuesday night. I said, Listen, I think this young guy can get in a runoff. Overall, though, he began curating on social media a more upbeat, inspirational, in retrospect almost proto-political persona wearing camo, smoking cigars, shooting guns and bows, doing dips in the gym with his wheelchair lashed to his waist. Joseph R. Biden is our president.. Republicans, many of whom reportedlyhad to field concerned questions from their spouses, were really pissed off. Madison Cawthorn at the Republican National Convention. He had a fundraiser shooting skeet last Monday. As for Cawthorns version of the car crash, that statement he made was false, Ledford told the Post. Ledford told the Washington Post that Cawthorn was unconscious after the crash, a claim buttressed by a deposition in which the future congressman said he had no memory of the accident. But that would be the plan., Scenes from Cawthorns neighborhood, including his church in Flat Rock (top left) and a depository for retired American flags (bottom right). Cawthorns account of the 2014 wreck which he presented publicly in the chapel of his Christian college in Virginia three years later was that a close friend had crashed the car in which he was a passenger, leaving him to die in a fiery tomb, the Post reported over the weekend. This service is provided on News Group Newspapers' Limited's Standard Terms and Conditions in accordance with our Privacy & Cookie Policy. Screenshot from Instagram. Madison Cawthorn just paid $100,000 for a Tesla Model S. Madison Cawthorn also has a $120,000 Audi A6 in her garage. Cawthorn has said in mailers and text-message blasts that he has Trumps. Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do. Paraplegic and suicidal sleeping in the hospital surrounded by his medical team on July 19 2016... His legs on the campaign privilege and adventure of my party, he said in a wheelchair and my. 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