Madison Cawthorn’s state senators back his primary challenger after orgy claims

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North Carolina’s Republican Senators Thom Tillis and Richard Burr said they’d support a primary challenge against freshman Represenative Madison Cawthorn after he made remarks alleging that colleagues engage in drugs and group sex.

The Independent asked Mr Tillis about speaker of the North Carolina house of representatives Tim Moore and state president pro tempore Phil Berger partaking in a fundraiser for primary challenger Chuck Edwards. Mr Moore succeeded Mr Tillis as speaker after Mr Tillis won his Senate race in 2014.

“I wasn’t aware of it but I’m ok with it,” he said. When asked whether Mr Cawthorn should lose his primary, Mr Tillis said, “I think he’s got a stiff challenge and he might.”

Mr Burr, who is retiring at the end of this Congress, was not too complimentary toward Mr Cawthorn either.

“I think that’s fine,” he told The Independent. “I think, as I said yesterday, he’s an embarrassment on given days. Just depends on if it’s a day that ends in ‘y.’”

The remarks come after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy dressed down Mr Cawthorn after he told the Warrior Poet Society podcast that members of Congress had invited him to partake in an orgy and that he had seen members do “a key bump of cocaine” right in front of him.

“This is unacceptable. There’s no evidence to this,” McCarthy told Axios.