House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) pledged to speak to Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) about his allegation that people in Washington, D.C., have invited him to orgies and done cocaine in front of him after Republican members expressed frustration with the comments.
Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) stood up in a House Republican Conference meeting on Tuesday to address the comment, according to a source in the room. Other members also expressed that they were upset at Cawthorn’s allegations.
In response, McCarthy said that he would speak to Cawthorn about the racy remarks. Politico first reported the exchange.
Cawthorn’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He was not in attendance at the conference meeting.
The 26-year-old first-term congressman made waves after he appeared on the “Warrior Poet Society” podcast last week and was asked whether the Netflix television drama “House of Cards” was “closer to a documentary.”
“I look at all these people, a lot of them that I’ve looked up to through my life, I’ve always paid attention to politics,” Cawthorn said. “Then all of the sudden you get invited to, ‘Well hey, we’re going to have kind of a sexual get together at one of our homes, you should come.’”
“I’m like, ‘What did you just ask me to come to?’” Cawthorn continued. “And then you realize they are asking you to come to an orgy.”
He added that he has seen people who advocate for fighting against addiction do cocaine in front of him.
A spokesperson for Womack told The Hill that he felt very strongly about addressing the comments from Cawthorn.
The orgy comment is the second instance in recent weeks in which House Republicans have rebuked a statement from Cawthorn.
In a video unearthed by local North Carolina news outlet WRAL earlier this month, Cawthorn was seen calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “thug.”
“Remember that Zelenskyy is a thug,” Cawthorn said. “Remember that the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt and is incredibly evil and has been pushing woke ideologies.”
McCarthy addressed the “thug” comment in a press conference. “Madison is wrong. If there’s any thug in this world, it’s Putin,” he said.
The Republican leader added, though, that he still supported Cawthorn’s reelection campaign.