So we are armed. We are in a safe place – can’t reveal where,” Rep. Cawthorne said during an interview with conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Rep. Madison Cawthorne (RN.C.) said he carried “multiple weapons” in his wheelchair during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6 last year, a newly discovered video released Monday showed.
The 26-year-old freshman MP admitted that both he and Trump-supporting freshman Rep. Lauren Bobert (R-Colorado) were armed that day, and that “everyone around” had guns that day.
But he and Bobert took office three days before Donald Trump supporters brutally stormed the US Capitol in a bid to topple President Joe Biden’s election victory.
The discovered video comes from a radio show by conservative activist Charlie Kirk. In a specific cutscene, Kirk is seen holding Cawthorne in line at the same time that the rioters broke through the original Capitol defenses and were climbing the walls.
Asked if he was safe at the moment, Chowrne replied that he was, but continued: “As you know, I believe in the Second Amendment, as do many other members.”
So we are armed. We are in a safe place – I can’t say where,” the GOP instigator said.
In another part of the approximately one-minute video, Kirk asked Cawthorne to confirm that he and Bobert were armed.
“Thanks to you and Lauren Bobert, you guys are armed now, right? It’s something new,” Kirk said.
Cawthorne, who seemed hesitant at first, replied, “Yes, indeed, yes.”
“So, you know, obviously in a wheelchair I can carry a lot… several weapons at the same time,” he said. “So everyone around me is armed”
A North Carolina lawmaker said that “an armed society is a polite society,” even as rioters smashed the glass windows of the US Capitol and some roamed its halls chanting “Hang Mike Pence” at the former vice president.
A newly discovered video shows Kirk talking to Cawthorne at the very moment that Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.
“So I feel completely safe, we have no nerves here. Everyone is very, very calm, very sober,” said Cawthorne.
It is unclear how many and what weapons he or Bobert carried that day.
If Colorado’s representative was armed, it would mean she lied about that fact during an interview with Fox News days after the riots. On January 13, Bobert said she was unarmed when rioters broke into the Capitol and attacked existing House rules that forbid lawmakers from carrying firearms on the floor of the House.
“Some of the participants were armed, they just had the feeling that they were breaking the rules that day,” she said of those she claimed were armed. “And we kind of all clung to those who did it.”
has reached out to both of their offices for comment, but has yet to receive a response.
Last week, Cawthorne came under fire for calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “thug” and his democratically elected government “evil.”
Zelenskiy, who was elected in a landslide victory in 2019, received praise from the international community for his bravery after Russia’s autocratic leader Vladimir Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
Cawthorne said Rep. Lauren Boebert was also armed that day, despite claiming she was unarmed days after the riot.
Cawthorne’s comments not only challenged world leaders, but most of his fellow Republicans in Congress.
“Remember Zelensky is a thug,” said the 26-year-old Republican freshman in a short video released by WRAL earlier this month.
He appears to have discussed sending US military aid to Ukraine and then lashed out at leaders in Kyiv who refused to flee the country despite reports that many of them were on Russia’s “death list”, including Zelenskiy and his family.
“Remember that the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt and incredibly evil, and it is promoting an awakening ideology,” he said.
As reported by Insider, Cawthorne doubled down on sentiment during a local GOP event in North Carolina.
He said the Kiev government is “very vile” and “well known for its corruption”, sharing the same opinion about the Russian government in an apparent attempt to distance itself from earlier inflammatory remarks.