Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina has spent his short life mostly lying about himself, his accomplishments, his integrity, and just about anything one could lie about. He has done so in order to make himself money. After becoming a member of the U.S. Congress, Cawthorn has continued to say outlandish thing after outlandish thing in the service of fundraising and promoting himself as a brand. A brand of what? Who knows? Whatever he and Reps. Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene are selling. Madness, mostly.
On Friday, reporter Josh Kraushaar tweeted out Cawthorn’s FEC disclosure for his first quarter of spending. All candidates must do so, to show how much money they’ve taken in and what they have spent. Kraushaar wrote: “Madison Cawthorn just filed his 1stQ fundraising report — spent more than he raised and has less than 300K in bank.” According to New York Times political reporter Shane Goldmacher, Rep. Cawthorn has a lot less than even that in the bank.
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Kraushaar’s tweet was referring to the $242k in the bank. This, by itself, is a pretty abysmal number considering that Cawthorn totals this cycle’s contributions at $3,449,201.43. But Goldmacher points out that Cawthorn has about $127k in outstanding bills. Not a good look for the guy who spent time disrespecting veterans during committee hearings, choosing to clean his gun instead of pay attention to their testimony. It’s an even worse look for the North Carolina representative who then voted against the Honoring our PACT Act, which looked to over the costs military personnel incur after being poisoned by toxic burn pits during their service to our country.
In fact, according to the filing, Cawthorn’s spending more than he’s taking in. It’s called “operating at a loss.” It costs a lot to constantly troll the world on social media, at events, and on podcasts. What’s he spending money on?
The reports show his campaign spent $443 on Chick-Fil-A, $1,371 on "Papas Beer," and $2,560 on Amazon.
But it isn’t his money. Amiright? The responses were fast and furious.
Good question.
Very good question.
And how do we all feel about this turn of events?
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