Rep. Madison Cawthorn should out the fellow Republicans he claims invited him to orgies and snorted cocaine in front of him, the leader of the conservative Freedom Caucus said.
Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry said he plans to speak to caucus member Cawthorn about comments he made in a podcast likening the Capitol Hill culture to the Netflix series “House of Cards.”
“I think it is important, if you’re going to say something like that, to name names,” Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican, said of Cawthorn in an interview with Politico.
The comments from freshman congressman Cawthorn, 26, have led to suggestions from some within the Freedom Caucus that he should be ousted from the group, Politico reported.
Perry wouldn’t say whether the caucus would consider booting Cawthorn if he didn’t name names or share evidence to back up his salacious claims.
“And I haven’t talked to him at all, so I don’t want to predispose the conversation,” Perry said of the North Carolina lawmaker.
The members of the caucus met Monday night and their reactions to the comments were varied, the website states.
Cawthorn discussed alleged “sexual perversion” of some older lawmakers, including people he said he previously looked up to, on an episode of the Warrior Poet Society podcast last week.
“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. “And then you realize they’re asking you to come to an orgy.”
He also said he witnessed a lawmaker snort cocaine despite having a public anti-addiction stance.
The comments have also led to questions from the broader House Republican conference. Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday he also planned to speak with Cawthorn, after the issue was raised at a closed-door GOP meeting earlier in the day.