Rep. Madison Cawthorn is speaking out about, and shrugging off, old photos of him wearing lingerie that were published last week by Politico.
The North Carolina Republican, 26, has a history of headline-making behavior and sometimes controversial remarks, most recently when he suggested other lawmakers in Washington, D.C., were doing drugs and engaging in orgies.
Elected in 2020 at age 25, he is one of the youngest representatives in history and has built a national profile both on his personal backstory (he uses a wheelchair after being paralyzed in a car crash) and a penchant for Trump-style provocation.
It was after his latest comments about drug use and sex in D.C., which drew push-back from some of his fellow legislators, and which he reportedly later said were embellished, that Politico published the lingerie images on Friday, describing them as “screenshots” of the originals.
Politico said the photos were sent to them “by a person formerly close to Cawthorn and his campaign” and that another source had attested to their veracity.
The images show Cawthorn sitting down while wearing a black bra over a sleeveless, see-through top.
Taking to Twitter on Friday, Cawthorn wrote that the photos were in jest and indicated they were taken during part of an activity on a cruise.
He linked the leak to his Democratic opponents, despite evidence of their role.
“I guess the left thinks goofy vacation photos during a game on a cruise (taken waaay before I ran for Congress) is going to somehow hurt me?” Cawthorn wrote. “They’re running out of things to throw at me…”
In his tweet, Cawthorn also urged followers to “share their most embarrassing vacay pics in the replies.”
Cawthorn initially made his comments about alleged orgies and drug use among some colleagues on a March 27 episode of the Warrior Poet Societypodcast.
“Some of the people that are leading on the movement to try to remove addiction in our country, then you watch them do a key bump of cocaine in front of you,” he said at the time.
Cawthorn later addressed the comments in a Twitter statement, claiming he was being misconstrued.
In the past, Cawthorn has been open about his conservative views regarding gender and sexuality, including tweeting that there is “only one God and only two genders.”
“I think that we have bred a generation of soft men and that generation has created a lot of problems in our society and our culture,” Cawthorn said on the Order of Man podcast in 2021.
The lingerie photos drew comment from some noted LGBTQ advocates, including Charlotte Clymer, who cited past comments Cawthorn had made attacking “radical expressions of sexuality” and expressing skepticism about transgender identity.
“I don’t care that Madison Cawthorn likes to wear lingerie in his free time. It doesn’t bother me, and it doesn’t affect me. If he wants to be playful with gender expression, it’s his life,” Clymer wrote on Twitter on Friday. “I do care that Madison Cawthorn attacks trans people and shames us for living our lives.”
“The culture in Washington is corrupt. Human nature is fallen. Compromising activities occur because when other people can place you in compromising positions, they control you. It’s all about power, but my colleagues and I are fighting that corruption,” he wrote.
Cawthorn galvanized support (and garnered backlash) with his outspoken campaign style before winning his race in November 2020. His first statement after defeating opponent Moe Davis was a tweet reading “Cry more, lib.”
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