Madison Cawthorn's accident was a car accident that happened after he was returning from a spring-break trip to Florida with his friend who has been identified as Bradley Ledford. The right-wing star claimed his friend left him to die in a "fiery tomb." The friend told The Washington Post he pulled Cawthorn from the wreck. He jet-skied in Miami, scuba-dived in Mexico, pumped his fist while swimming in the Dead Sea and drank shirtless from a pineapple in the Bahamas. Cawthorn worked as a staffer in former White House chief of staff Mark Meadow's district office from 2015 to 2016. He was suing Ledford and Ledfords fathers business for millions of dollars of medical bills. Should he be elected in November, at age 25 years old, he'll be the youngest member of . By Reuben Jones Washington, D.C. Republicans, many of whom reportedlyhad to field concerned questions from their spouses, were really pissed off. Together, the loaded gun and the crypto incidents shed light on what separates a Cawthornean scandal from the controlled chaos of other far-right figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz. You said you cant procreate, the lawyer continued. Listen to the author discuss this piece with our Editor in Chief on the Lawfare Podcast. Shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Cawthorn told his supporters thatUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a thug and that the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt and is incredibly evil and has been pushing woke ideologies.. I cant go adventuring in places. In their depositions, Cawthorn stated that he had "no memory from the accident," while Ledford said that he had helped rescue an unconscious Cawthorn. Afterward, he said, they ended up together at an Italian restaurant in Bryson City called Pasqualinos. I voted for Madison originally, I donated to him originally, I like him but hes self-destructing, OConnell told me. Most of the others running had been at an NAACP forum in Hendersonville, including the handful of Democrats, but OConnell and Cawthorn had opted to go to the meeting of the Republican club of Swain County. David Corn, Noah Lanard, and Dan Friedman. He tried to kick out the windshield, but it wouldn't budge. Congressman Madison Cawthorn. To conservatives, lets define what we support, and win the argument in areas like health care and the environment, he said from the stage at the Republican National Convention that August. by Anonymous: reply 58: June 24, 2020 3:09 AM: . 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. Madison Cawthorn's birth took place on August 1, 1995, in Asheville, North Carolina. Although political and entertainment sources do not reveal specifics about Madison Cawthorn spinal cord injury level, they do describe how bad it is. Coursing through many of my conversations with people in Cawthorns district is a belief that the accident ravaged his body and messed with his psyche but that winning the election has harmed him too. He was pulled over going 87 in a 70 in Polk. Ridiculously handsome and 1995 born Madison Cawthorn Walloped Trump endorsed candidate in the GOP primary for NC11 district. I could get into all the reasons that Madison Cawthorn is not fit to serve in Congress. In 2014, Cawthorn, who at the time was 18, was injured while returning from a spring-break trip from Florida. I cant bail hay. I worry about him.. Want to read more stories like this? He was invited to the White House. We dont want to be arrogant. He chided his opponent, Lynda Bennett, whom Meadows and Trump had endorsed, for refusing to commit to debate him. Hes not OK, said Michele Woodhouse, the former Republican chair of the 11th District whos now running against him. But for Cawthorns older, more experienced advisers, the tweet was one of the first signs of a stark, disquieting change. He had wanted to maybe play college football. Episode 82 of the Agents of Innovation podcast features an interview with Madison Cawthorn, a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in North Carolina's 11th Congressional District.A dark horse in the race, he won the Republican Primary with a sweeping victory in the runoff in June 2020. Madison Cawthorn, the American politician who has been the 11th congressional district of North Carolina's representative since 2021, says that disability is not a problem at all for him. I cant wrestle with my brother. And yet he spent parts of the following few weeks, as Congress moved swiftly toward impeachment of the outgoing president, saying he was sorry. Ledford explained how he moved toward Cawthorn and felt an intense heat on his right arm, then realized flames were engulfing the back half of the SUV. Campaign YouTube. The recovery is not complete, said David Rhode, a fellow Hendersonville native who knew Cawthorn pre-politics but now works for Wendy Nevarez, another one of Cawthorns current opponents. Screenshot from Instagram, I miss my life, he said. Cawthorn is running for reelection in North Carolina's 11th District, which includes his hometown of Hendersonville. Read the full story . Cawthorn received a firm talking to from House Minority Leader (and model of honesty) Kevin McCarthy. | I said, Listen, I think this young guy can get in a runoff. But in recent months, he seems to be committing transgressions at an accelerated rate, to the point that some days hes now the focus of multiple mini-scandals (and some not-so-mini ones). This photo provided by the Transportation Security Administration shows the handgun that officials say was found in Cawthorn's carry-on bag at a Charlotte Douglas International Airport security checkpoint in April. The most charitable way to see Cawthorns first month in Congress is that it was the last gasp of his best self. "And [Ledford] leaves me in a car to die in a fiery tomb. But an examination by The . Rep. Madison Cawthorn stood up from his wheelchair . 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. "I feel like battling against a spinal cord injury is a lot like battles in World War 1. The RNC. By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from Mother Jones and our partners. Rep. Madison Cawthorn speaks before a rally for former U.S. President Donald Trump at The Farm at 95 on April 9, 2022 in Selma, North Carolina. And he's a grifter, this is just a new type of grift. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and In an interview with People, Ledford expanded on what happened immediately after the crash - and how he and Cawthorn have repaired their bond. 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. Of all the absurd figures in modern politics, nobodynot even Lauren Boeberthas Rep. Madison Cawthorns once-in-a-generation talent for making misguided and self-destructive decisions for no discernible reason. The remarks caused a major headache for the Republicans at a time when many party members were backpedaling from their Putin-friendly rhetoric. "He needs to get his act together. I cant stand up and pee. In the end, Cawthorns team was declared the winner., But Cawthorn in particular stood out. She said he had talked a lot about his hope for miraculous advancements in spinal cord repair. Back home in North Carolina, he made a vision board, or goal board. HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. In August of 2015, 16 months after the accident that nearly killed him and left him unable to walk, Madison Cawthorn exchanged text messages with the friend who had fallen asleep at the wheel and careened into a concrete wall. 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. 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 interviews with outlets ranging from local newspapers to Jewish Insider to CNN, Cawthorn expressed regret. Rod Honeycutt saw Cawthorn over the weekend at the Asheville Gun & Knife Show at the Western North Carolina Agricultural Center in Fletcher. A lot of folks Ive talked to, they think when he was in that accident there was something that happened to him beyond his physical impairment, said Erwin. Im not planning to vote for Donald Trump or Joe Biden., And he said he didnt care for Trumps tweets. For other inquiries, Contact Us. A newly uncovered video shows police pulling over Rep Madison Cawthorn for allegedly driving more than 20 miles over the speed limit. 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. Stayed probably 20 minutes, he told me, and then rolled on out of there.. Cawthorn has also claimed that he was accepted to Princeton and to an online program at Harvard, only to later confess that he hadnt been admitted to either. He left office on January 3, 2023. For so long weve just kind of been the party of no without offering a lot of really good answers., Top" Cawthorn sits at the front and center as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy poses with the freshman members of the House Republican Conference on the steps of the Capitol on Jan. 4, 2020. It's us but for your ears. Elected into Congress in 2020, Cawthorn is the youngest member of Congress since Jed Johnson Jr in the 1990s. I think the press should be allowed to stay, he said, so people can hear what we have to say. (Cawthorn denied being forceful, and his spokesperson at the time said there was a big difference between a failed advance and being forceful, to the extent thats possible when youre paraplegic.). The first thing he did was contest the election of Joe Biden. Cawthorn's account of the 2014 wreck . All Rights Reserved. He has become one of the most vocal peddlers of the claim that the presidential election was fraudulently stolen from Donald Trump, another lie. Cawthorn described the moment to The North State Journal, saying that at a Meadows victory party, the congressman got on his knees, at Cawthorn's eye level, and asked him to come work for him . 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. Cawthorn, a 26-year-old Republican from . Madison Cawthorn, the 25-year-old North Carolina Republican vying for a House seat, on Wednesday night told his personal story of the tragic accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. 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. A former close friend of right-wing Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) told The Washington Post the lawmaker lied about a car wreck that partially paralyzed him. Their car was said to have crashed into a concrete barrier while Cawthorn's feet were on the dashboard . May 19, 2022 by Saqlain Farouk. He told mothers to raise their sons to be monsters. He disparaged the Ukrainian president. He's gone on to achieve political success on many levels - but his career has been marred by a string of scandals. Amanda Greene for Politico Magazine. Amanda Greene for Politico Magazine, Throughout 2018 and 2019, he continued to give motivational speeches at colleges and churches. For a 25-year-old, Madison Cawthorn's really made a successful name for himself, not only professionally but also financially as well. Madison Cawthorn was once a rising GOP star. In a speech he made to the student body in a chapel on campus, he falsely suggested he had gotten into the Naval Academy before the accident, and he said Ledford had left him to die in the car in a fiery tomb when Ledford in fact had helped pull him out. Many of the aggressive encounters occurred during what Cawthorn liked to call fun drives in his car, according to BuzzFeed. Madison is in a lot of pain, said Rhode, the Hendersonville native who knows Cawthorn but is working for Wendy Nevarez, another of the candidates running against him. He lost renomination in 2022. A leaked video of a nude Cawthorn thrusting his pelvis into another man's face is the latest scandal to embroil the freshman congressman since he talked about cocaine use and orgies on a podcast . One of his accusers worked as a Republican intern on Capitol Hill at the time she went public with her allegation. He is just 24 years old, his name is Madison Cawthorn, and he scored one of the big upsets in the primaries on Tuesday in North Carolina, said Whoopi Goldberg. And then when youre a young man who has a terrible accident like that, and your identity is kind of stripped from you, all of that is amplified even more, said a GOP consultant who knows Cawthorn. More recently hes lost the backing of the top two Republicans in the state Legislature, House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger; the states GOP senators, Richard Burr and Thom Tillis; and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy in Washington. And Cawthorn in this telling made his decision. The 26-year-old is a member of the Republican party. Cawthorn in a tweet . In April 2021, the Cawthorn married his fiance Bayardelle, writing on Twitter, "On April 3rd of 2014 my life changed. Mr Cawthorn has come under fire in recent weeks from his fellow Republicans after he said on a podcast that members had invited him to an orgy and taken "a key bump of cocaine" in front of him. At a campaign event at a gun store in Cherokee County on May 6, the driver of the SUV Cawthorn arrived in as well as a Cawthorn supporter with a pickup truck unsuccessfully attempted to block the view of POLITICO's photographer. Ledford referenced the tension of the court case and lamented they couldnt hang out the way we used to.. And so he started communicating with other people and said that I couldnt handle a disagreement between two girls and it wasnt two girls; it was a young lady and a woman and that I was just a coward and a bitch, and he didnt know if he wanted me to be his district director, Erwin told me. How do you know that?, Everyone is always hopeful, but, I mean, with my injury, its unlikely that Ill walk or procreate or, you know, recover.. I miss everything too, Cawthorn shot back, unleashing one long, raw message, screens and screens of anguish and loss. You either need to give up or you need to move on. That night, he said, he stayed up for more than four hours making a list of pros and cons of staying alive.. Rather than running to safety deep in the woods, Ledford said that hed pulled Cawthorn from the burning car, potentially saving his life. He was paraplegic. | 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). He wasnt. The video published by American Muckrakers PAC, according to UpdatesPlug, showed Rep. Madison Cawthorn naked in bed, with his wheelchair beside the bed, carrying out the sex act with [] However, Bennett did not receive the required 30 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff and Cawthorn won the June runoff overwhelmingly. 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. Gripping reads, smart analysis and a bit of high-minded fun. Cawthorn posted the photo on social media shortly before his accident. Copyright 2023 Mother Jones and the Foundation for National Progress. Im as disappointed as anyone in the headlines that were seeing and the behavior and the decisions of our sitting congressman., Madison, said Rod Honeycutt, a retired Army colonel whos been running since last summer, is a young man in trouble., Cawthorn's campaign headquarters are in a repurposed former auto repair shop in Hendersonville, N.C. We kept all politics local, he said. He had a fundraiser at a restaurant in Hendersonville on Wednesday. Part of HuffPost Politics. Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights. History Made. 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