MSNBC’s Chris Hayes contrasted former Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn‘s “cocaine-fueled orgies” comments to the Democrats’ up-and-coming — and likely new youngest member of Congress — Maxwell Frost, Sunday.
“We are now almost certainly going to have a new youngest member of the United States Congress,” Hayes announced on “All In with Chris Hayes,” saying that “Maxwell Frost is, in every way, essentially the opposite of Madison Cawthorn.”
Hayes’ remarks come after noting that the last 25-year-old elected to Congress was North Carolina’s Cawthorn, who was “initially embraced by Trump … until a series of scandals tarnished his appeal, most notably his claim that Republicans colleagues invited him to cocaine-fueled orgies.”
Hayes played a clip from an interview with Cawthorn on “The Warrior Poet Society” podcast that aired in March, in which he accused Republican lawmakers of inviting him to a sexual gathering.
“Then all of a sudden you get invited — ‘We’re going to have a sexual get-together at one of our homes, you should come,’” Cawthorn said in the interview. “And then you realize they’re asking you to come to an orgy … Some of the people leading on the movement to try and remove addiction in our country, and then you watch them do a key bump of cocaine right in front of you. And it’s like, this is wild.”
“Just a key bump of cocaine right in front of you; that earned him a rebuke from the Republican House leader [who] was not psyched about that [and] criticism from fellow North Carolina Republicans,” Hayes said. “After alienating just about everyone in his own party, Cawthorn lost his primary election three months ago.”
His replacement for youngest congress member will likely be 25-year-old Frost, who won his Democrat primary race by double digits in Florida’s 10th congressional district this weekend and whom Hayes described as the “opposite” of Cawthorn.
“While Cawthorn was busted twice for trying to board an airplane with a loaded gun, Frost is a gun-violence prevention advocate, a former national organizing director for the pro-gun safety group March for Our Lives,” the MSNBC host said.
Hayes also pointed out that Cawthorn lacked support from Republican lawmakers “who wanted to get rid of him,” in comparison to Frost, who has a slew of progressive voices behind him, including Senator Bernie Sanders.
“While Madison Cawthorn tried to support the overthrow of American democracy by helping to incite a violent mob to stop certification of Biden’s win,” Hayes continued, “Frost was trying to expand democracy by leading a voter turnout program, which helped drive record numbers of young people to the polls.”
“From where I stand, seems like a pretty good trade,” Hayes concluded.
Frost is set to run against Republican Calvin Wimbish in the November election in a district that is considered a Democratic stronghold.
