SELMA, North Carolina—When Rep. Madison Cawthorn got up on stage to warm up a Donald Trump rally on Saturday, he wasn’t greeted as a pariah, lightweight, or punchline.
These days, that’s the response the 26-year old congressman is getting from Republicans and Democrats in Washington.
But in this North Carolina field by the side of Interstate 95, Cawthorn got a hero’s welcome. To the MAGA diehards gathered there, he is a knight in shining armor—a survivor with an inspiring story of triumph over adversity, a clean-cut, well-spoken young man who mothers just love that their daughters love.
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To the extent that they were thinking about the lengthy string of controversies that have driven Cawthorn’s reputation into the gutter in Washington, rally attendees who spoke to The Daily Beast were more likely to shrug than wince, to cheer him on than turn their backs.
When asked about Cawthorn’s most incendiary recent scandal—his allegation that he saw fellow lawmakers doing “key bumps” of cocaine and that one invited him to an orgy—this crowd showed little of the righteous indignation that the congressman’s GOP colleagues have.
But several rally attendees actually believed Cawthorn’s claims. What’s more, they welcomed the backlash he faced as proof that he’s doing something right.
Karen Mitchell, who traveled to the rally from central North Carolina with her husband Dart, said Cawthorn faced reprimands because members of Congress “don’t want anyone to know what they’re up to.”
“I don’t think he’s lying,” Mitchell said. “Why make that up?”
Asked what he made of the hot water that Cawthorn repeatedly finds himself in, her husband Dart quickly interjected: “We like hot water.”
Another attendee, Dylan Franklin of nearby Clayton, replied with a verbal shrug—“eghh”—when asked about Cawthorn’s cocaine-and-orgy comments. “It’s murky water, especially in D.C.,” Franklin said. “I don’t know what to believe these days.”
Still, Franklin was willing to put at least a fair bit of faith in Cawthorn. “I definitely like him,” he said. “He is the new wave that we need in America.”
The ability to somehow become more popular through scandal is a quality that Cawthorn may share with Trump, his political icon.
Some rally-goers even put them on the same level—literally.
To Bruce Wilson, a 20-year old business student, Cawthorn is “on the same pedestal” as Trump.
Of 14 attendees The Daily Beast interviewed, half knew enough about Cawthorn to have an opinion about him. To a person, the opinion of those who did was overwhelmingly effusive. If the crowd’s reaction to Cawthorn’s speech—and Trump’s personal name-check later in the night—was any indication, the audience in Selma was full of fans.
That reception should be welcome news for Cawthorn. Not only is he on thin ice in D.C.—with Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) reportedly urging him to “turn his life around”—he is facing real political trouble back home in his district. A half-dozen Republicans are running against him in a suddenly competitive GOP primary, where his biggest liability may be the months he spent running in a different district.
The problem, however, for the young conservative idol is that the Cawthorn diehards who gathered Saturday in an eastern North Carolina field are not eligible to actually vote for Cawthorn in his far western North Carolina district—as much as they wish they could.
“It stinks,” said Morgan Wells, a resident of New Bern, of her inability to cast a vote for Cawthorn.
Still, Saturday’s rally may resonate for the embattled lawmaker in important ways back home. Amid scrutiny in D.C. and questions about his political future back home, Cawthorn got the benefit of a theatrical embrace into the official MAGA fold at the rally, getting attention from right-wing media and warm praise from Trump himself.
“I love him,” Trump said, before adding a hint of sarcasm that addressed the elephant in the room: “He’s never controversial—there’s no controversy.”
Less sarcastically, Trump said that Cawthorn has “respect all over the place” and “he’s got a big voice.”
Indeed, Cawthorn’s high-volume timbre was on display during his warm-up speech, which was peppered with Bible references, Mark Twain quotes, and calls to impeach President Joe Biden and jail Anthony Fauci.
The congressman opened by telling the crowd that “dark forces” were “controlling the levers of power” in Washington, which prompted solemn nods from the crowd.
But the emotional peak of Cawthorn’s stump speech wasn’t political—it was personal. About halfway through, he recounted the story of the accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Flanked by aides, he finished the story by lifting himself up from his wheelchair to stand at the lectern, prompting thunderous cheers from the audience.
Cawthorn employed that dramatic display during his speech at the 2020 Republican convention, a moment that made many Republicans excited about his potential.
That excitement may have given way to exasperation in Washington, but as long as enthusiasm exists among members of the MAGA base, Cawthorn figures to have some kind of future in the party that Trump continues to dominate.
Simply, many of them just like what Cawthorn has to say most of the time. Dart Mitchell, for instance, invoked a recent Cawthorn moment that prompted viral derision on the left—his use of the term “tallywhacker” to refer to the male anatomy during a House floor speech—with an approving laugh.
And few rally-goers had problems with Cawthorn’s recent smearing of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “thug” with an “evil” government, either. Franklin, for instance, agreed heartily with the claim.
In this audience, that kind of rhetoric isn’t incendiary—it’s just commonsense.
“Other people view him as controversial,” Wilson, the student, said. “I don’t think he is.”
