A Republican group is calling out Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) for spreading lies about the 2020 election as well as his history of using violent rhetoric, including a new warning about “bloodshed.”
The new video from the Republican Accountability Project asks the first-term lawmaker if he’s forgotten the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by insurrectionists trying to keep former President Donald Trump in power.
“There’s already been bloodshed,” the voiceover notes. “Bloodshed instigated by your lies about our election.”
The footage shows some of the more inflammatory comments made by Cawthorn:
The spot will run as an online ad targeted at Republicans in Cawthorn’s district.
Cawthorn voted against certifying the election results on Jan. 6 to support the effort to keep Trump in office. He seemed to briefly change his tune weeks later.
“I think I would say that the election was not fraudulent,” he said on CNN on Jan. 23, just days after Trump left office in defeat. “So, now I would say that Joseph R. Biden is our president.”
However, Cawthorn has since attempted to curry favor with the former president, even joining him at a possible mysterious “shadow cabinet” meeting in August, where Trump supplicants continued to pretend he was still president.
Last weekend, Cawthorn not only repeated false claims about the election results, he appeared to threaten violence if those who lost the election don’t get their way.
“If our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen, it’s gonna lead to one place, and it’s bloodshed,” Cawthorn said, adding: “as much as I’m willing to defend our liberty at all costs, there’s nothing that I would dread doing more than having to pick up arms against a fellow American.”
A spokesperson claimed Cawthorn was advocating against violence.
The Republican Accountability Project has been running ads against party members who enabled Trump’s lies and supported the Jan. 6 insurrection. Cawthorn is among the 13 names in the group’s online “Hall of Shame.”