Rep. Madison Cawthorn says he doesn't regret telling a crowd before the Capitol riot that it had 'fight in it'
Rep. Madison Cawthorn defended his speech at the "Stop the Steal" rally ahead of the Capitol riot.
He had told the crowd it had some "fight in it" during his speech on January 6.
He said he thought the riot was "despicable," but said he does not regret his comment.
Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn says he doesn't regret telling a crowd of President Donald Trump's supporters attending the "Stop the Steal" rally in Washington, DC, it had "some fight in it" before it descended into the riot at the Capitol in January.
"I don't regret it, actually," Cawthorn told Ozy Media founder Carlos Watson in an interview for the YouTube program, "The Carlos Watson Show." "Obviously, I think what happened on January 6 was despicable. I thought it was conducted by weak-minded men and women who are unable to check their worst impulses and had very little self-control."
Cawthorn had spoken at the "Stop the Steal" rally on January 6, about an hour before Trump, and before rioters breached the Capitol building.
"This crowd has some fight in it," he said about the crowd, which later stormed the Capitol building as Congress prepared to certify the Electoral College votes in the 2020 presidential election. "The Democrats, with all the fraud they have done in this election, the Republicans, hiding and not fighting, they are trying to silence your voice. Make no mistake about it, they do not want you to be heard."
He also called his colleagues "cowards" during the speech, and told the crowd it had a "voice of lions."
"There is a new Republican Party on the rise that will represent this country, that will go and fight in Washington, DC," he said.
In his interview with Watson, which will air on Monday, Cawthorn defended the speech, saying he was telling the crowd he would "speak on your behalf" in Congress.
"I feel like a lot of frustration from Americans comes from when they don't feel like they're being represented in politics," he said. "If anything, I hope that my words brought peace into the hearts of more people than violence."
Cawthorn, who still voted to contest the Electoral College votes after the riot, has since accepted President Joe Biden's win in the presidential election.
But the "Stop the Steal" rally wasn't the first time he was criticized for things he has said.
He previously told a crowd at a Turning Point USA event in December to "lightly threaten" lawmakers if they didn't support claims of voter fraud made against the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.
"Call your congressman and feel free, you can lightly threaten them and say, you know what, if you don't start supporting election integrity, I'm coming after you, Madison Cawthorn is coming after you, everybody's coming after you," Cawthorn had said at the event.
When asked about the Turning Point USA speech last month, a spokesperson for Cawthorn told Insider: "The threat of a primary challenge is not a call for violence and the media knows that."
Democratic officials in Cawthorn's home state of North Carolina have called for him to be expelled from Congress.
In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last month, they said that Cawthorn be "held accountable for his seditious behavior and for the consequences resulting from said behavior."
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