Disgraced outgoing Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) has blamed former President Donald Trump (R) for creating a “dangerous setting” outside of the U.S. Capitol during the January 6, 2021 riots.
In his recent interview on the Carlos Watson Show, the show’s host asked Cawthorn if there was anything he would have done differently when he spoke at Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington D.C. the morning before the riots began.
“Well, you know, one, I mean, you know, President Donald Trump said, ‘I want you to peaceably and patriotically protest,’ — that’s good on his part. But if I could go back, I probably and I had an opportunity to speak with the President, which I did not, I would have asked that he did not send or tell the crowd to go down to the Capitol,” Cawthorn said, adding, “You know, I think that that just put everything in a dangerous setting.”
Later on in the interview, Cawthorn said that if he could go back and change his own speech at the rally, he would have urged Trump’s followers to be more peaceful.
However, at the rally he repeatedly told Trump’s followers, without proof, that the election had been stolen. Trump himself said that his followers should “fight” for their democracy or else they wouldn’t have one anymore. He also repeatedly blamed his own Vice President Mike Pence for not overturning the election, something that Pence had no legal or political precedent to do.
Trump’s followers later called for Pence to be hung for treason.
Five people died during the January 6 riot, and Trump’s supporters injured roughly 140 police officers. The police injuries included a broken spine, a lost eye, lost fingers, brain damage and multiple cases of PTSD. Four Capitol Police officers have died by suicide since the riots.
The rioters ransacked the Capitol, shattered windows while trying to access congressional chambers, smeared feces in the hallway and stole computer equipment, potentially constituting a national security breach.
Cawthorn was voted out of office on May 17, 2022, when he lost his primary election. He has since said that “Dark MAGA” will rise, a presumably more violent and corrupt version of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” political platform which advocates against minorities and uses mob violence against its enemies.