A producer of MSNBC’s top-rated “Rachel Maddow Show” accidentally copied the office of Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) on an email saying the show refused to contact Cawthorn because it “worried” the congerssman would want to appear on the show. The 26-year-old Republican has fired back that MSNBC’s “woke dystopian bubble” wants to “silence” conservative views.
“We are kinda interested in this AP story (below) that just dropped about Rep. Madison Cawthorn. A group of voters in NC is challenging his candidacy based on his ties to the insurrection,” an MSNBC senior producer wrote in an email to an NBC News staffer on Capitol Hill. The producer then asked:
- Do you or any other NBC Hill folks plan to ask him for comment on this story?
- If not, is that something you guys could do? We don’t have a relationship with his office and between you and me are a little worried that if we did inquire he might ask to come on and explain. I know that is HIGHLY doubtful, but don’t want to take that risk.
The MSNBC official apparently did not realize Cawthorn’s office had been copied on the email.
“Whoopsies @MSNBC!” Cawthorn mocked the network in a tweet after the story went public.
Whoopsies @MSNBC! https://t.co/zKmJ0tHHIX
— Madison Cawthorn (@CawthornforNC) January 10, 2022
“Fake news MSNBC doesn’t want to ‘take the risk’ that I’ll come on their show and trigger the left with my America First message and burst their woke dystopian bubble,” Cawthorn’s office said in a statement. “The left doesn’t want debate from conservatives, they want silence. And now we have it in writing. Sad!”
The email became the first public document to expose that Maddow, who has mentioned Cawthorn only a handful of times in the last year, typically in passing, fears a personal confrontation with the forthright Republican congressman.
The email also exposes one of the ways networks prevent those targeted by their hosts from personally holding their hosts accountable. Networks that belong to large news conglomerates, like MSNBC, secretly filter their requests for comment through other branches of the corporation, keeping the offending host at arm’s length from the individual whom the host intends to target.
The story that triggered the senior producer’s inquiry came when a left-wing nonprofit named Free Speech For People filed a lawsuit to prevent the 26-year-old conservative, who displaced democratic socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) as the youngest member of Congress, from running for re-election this November.
The 34-page legal complaint notes that the Fourteenth Amendment, section 3, states that “no person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress” who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the U.S. government. The group then asserts that Cawthorn’s two-and-a-half-minute speech at the peaceful “Stop the Steal” rally last January 6 “led directly, intentionally, and foreseeably to the insurrectionists’ violent assault on the Capitol.” The North Carolina congressman, who has used a wheelchair since a car accident left him partially paralyzed at age 18, told the crowd outside the Capitol to “hold your representatives accountable” and “make sure they stand up for election integrity.”
He concluded by leading the crowd in chanting, “USA!”
Cawthorn previously addressed the 2020 Republican National Convention from his wheelchair, where he hailed “the dream of MLK and the American dream.”
Cawthorn’s spokesman dismissed the group behind the complaint as “a dozen activists who are comically misinterpreting and twisting the 14th amendment for political gain.”
Cawthorn, who represents the 11th district of North Carolina, plans to seek re-election this fall in the state’s newly redrawn 13th district.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.