Wingnut freshman GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who voted to overturn the election results, was forced to finally admit that the election was not fraudulent during a lengthy interview on CNN this Saturday.
Many of you may remember Cawthorn as one of the speakers at the "Stop the Steal" MAGA rally that helped Trump and others rile up the crowd just prior to them storming the Capitol on January 6th.
Cawthorn is a favorite over on Fox "news," where he's used to getting softball interviews, and is free to lie with help from the hosts on the propaganda network as much as he wants. Maybe Cawthorn should just stick to lying on Fox, because he didn't do so well when simply asked to defend his claims about the election supposedly being stolen, that there was massive fraud, and his ridiculous assertion that putting out drop boxes in the middle of a pandemic to help people vote safely is somehow "ballot harvesting."
Brown asked Cawthorn if he could "share some specific examples of election fraud," and said that he "must have seen some concrete evidence" for him to have voted to decertify the election.
After Cawthorn cited the previously debunked lies about U-Hauls dropping off boxes full of illegal ballots, Dominion voting machines changing votes and the ridiculous drop boxes claim, Brown reminded him that team Trump was getting their rear ends handed to them over and over in court.
"But this was all litigated," Brown replied. "You know that the Trump campaign litigated all of this more than 60 cases and they lost, either the cases were dismissed, the Trump campaign withdrew or they never brought a case because they didn't have the evidence to back it up."
After Cawthorn responded by citing a case in Wisconsin supposedly being dismissed for standing, Brown again came back at him with some simple facts and again pressed Cawthorn for specific examples of fraud:
If you would, just tell us what are the specific examples you saw a fraud, because when you think of fraud, you think of a vote. You're slipping one pass the election official or a vote was stolen, somehow it didn't count. Did you see that, specifically?
After Cawthorn tried to claim that that wasn't the reason he contested the election, Brown hit him for the fact that he wanted to toss out million of ballots without having seen any "concrete evidence of fraud." After more back and forth over the drop boxes in Wisconsin, with Brown reminding him that a Trump appointed judge tossed that one out as well prior to the election, Brown also hit him for his focus on Wisconsin while ignoring what happened in his home state of North Carolina.
CAWTHORN: Well, Pam, I'm actually not aware of the laws that were changed inside of North Carolina. I believe we had a very safe and a very secure election here.
BROWN: There were several rules.
CAWTHORN: And so there's no reason to contest that.
BROWN: Yes. There were several rules. One of which is to extend when the mail-in ballots could arrive, I believe, by around seven days, that was one and there were a couple of others as well that were changed even after people started voting.
So I'm just wondering if you're so concerned about these rules being changed with the election, why wouldn't you focus on your own home state of North Carolina? I mean, you're telling me that your concern really is about election integrity, not politics, not the results of the election, right?
After Cawthorn defended his decision by saying his state's election integrity standards "are some of the greatest in the country," Brown reminded him that his state has a Democratic governor and election board, and whether Cawthorn was "giving the Democrats credit then for making voting safer in your state," Cawthorn was forced to admit that yes, Democrats in his state did deserve credit for running a safe and secure election.
People like Cawthorn deserve to be marginalized, but if you're going to put them on the air, they need to be pinned down on their lies as Brown did to Cawthorn here. If this was how he was treated every time he appeared on the air, maybe the prospect of appearing on television would start to look a little less appealing to him.
Aaron Ruper posted some of the lowlights of the interview on Twitter, for anyone who doesn't want to sit through the whole painful embarrassment.
