Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who sought to overturn Biden's win, admits that the election 'was not fraudulent' on CNN
Screenshot/CNN
- GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn's longstanding claims of voter fraud collapsed on Saturday.
- Cawthorn maintained that he contested the election "to hold up the Constitution."
- When pressed by CNN's Pamela Brown to cite specific cases of fraud, Cawthorn was unable to do so.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina came into office pledging to contest President Joe Biden's electoral win.
Throughout the evening of the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riots, Cawthorn continued to challenge the election results for both Arizona and Pennsylvania, emphasizing his focus on election integrity and the Constitution.
However, during a Saturday interview with CNN's Pamela Brown, his argument for contesting the results fell apart.
When Cawthorn was asked by Brown for evidence supporting claims of voter fraud, he was unable to cite any specific cases.
"The things that I was not objecting to the election on behalf of was things like Dominion voting machines changing ballots, or these U-Haul trucks pulling up filled with ballots for Joe Biden as president," he said.
"The thing I was objecting for is things like, like I said in the state of Wisconsin, particularly in the town of Madison … there was an appointed official in that town who actually went against the will of the state legislature and created ballot drop boxes, which is basically ballot harvesting that was happening in the parks," he continued.
—CNN (@CNN) January 24, 2021
Brown reminded the 25-year-old freshman congressman that then-President Donald Trump's campaign litigated several Wisconsin ballot issues and lost in court.
When Brown asked if Cawthorn had seen any specific cases of fraud, he could not come up with an answer.
"So you wanted to throw out millions of votes without actually seeing any concrete evidence of fraud?" Brown asked. "That's what you were doing when you were contesting the election."
Cawthorn then said that he contested the election "to hold up the Constitution."
After Brown told Cawthorn that his own state changed election laws in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which was a core part of his earlier argument, he said he was unaware that North Carolina changed any laws.
"I'm actually not aware of the laws that were changed inside of North Carolina," he said. "I believe we had a very safe and very secure election here."
Trump won North Carolina last November.
Biden won Arizona and Pennsylvania - states where Cawthorn fought the vote certification. He was unable to formally challenge Wisconsin's results because no senator stepped up to contest the results for the state, which Biden won.
By the end of the interview, Cawthorn's earlier claims of fraud disappeared into thin air.
"Yes, I think I would say the election was not fraudulent," he admitted to Brown.
He added: "The Constitution allowed for us to be able to push back as much as we could and I did that to the amount of the constitutional limits that I had at my disposal, so now I would say that Joseph R. Biden is our president."
No comments