From Staff Reports

As critics — mostly Democrats, but also some Republicans — continue to call for him to quit or be thrown out of office, Western North Carolina U.S. Congressman Madison Cawthorn, R-Hendersonville, met with, and delivered pizzas to, National Guardsmen, who were ordered to move rom U.S. Capitol grounds to a parking garage on Jan. 22, after helping protect the Capitol during the Inauguration just days earlier.

Indeed, thousands of National Guardsmen had been moved — for their work breaks — to a parking garage “after they were told they could no longer use space within the U.S. Capitol Complex, including areas like the cafeteria of a Senate office building, as a rest area,” multiple Guardsmen said, according to CNN.

“Members of the National Guard have been allowed back into the Capitol Complex after a slate of lawmakers voiced their outrage at guardsmen being banished to a parking garage as a rest area, a guardsman told CNN,” the network reported Jan. 22 

“The Guard will now be allowed to rest in the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, the guardsman said,” CNN added. 

“‘We honestly just feel betrayed,’ one guardsman told CNN earlier Thursday (Jan. 21), noting that a day before, congressmen had come by for photos with the different National Guards units that came to Washington to support security around the inauguration. ‘After everything went seamlessly, we were deemed useless and banished to a corner of a parking garage.’”

CNN added, “News of the guardsmen’s situation, which was first reported by Politico, drew swift outrage from lawmakers who tweeted their concern over the situation,” which resulted in the Guard being allowed to take rest breaks in the Capital Visitor Center.

While some sources have pointed to U.S. Rep. Bill Keating, D-MA, as the one causing the Guard to be banished to a cold parking garage, while on break, he denied that it was his fault. (At the end of the duty day, soldiers returned to their hotel rooms.)

Asheville television station WLOS (News 13) reported that “North Carolina Congressman, Madison Cawthornm R-Hendersonville, tweeted photos and videos of himself taking pizzas and meeting with the soldiers Thursday night, saying:

“‘I just visited the solders who have been abandoned & insulted by our leaders. I brought them pizza and told them that they can sleep in my office. No soldier will ever, ever sleep on a garage floor in the US Capitol while I work in Congress Our Troops deserve better.”

Meanwhile, HuffPost.com began a Jan. 24 story with the following headline:

 â€œRep. Madison Cawthorn, Totally Shredded On CNN, Admits He Has Nothing On Vote ‘Fraud.’”

A  HuffPost.com “teaser” headline added:

 â€˜I think I would say the election was not fraudulent,’ he finally confessed after getting schooled by (CNN’s) Pamela Brown.”

As the public outcry for Cawthorn’s departure from Congress got louder, the U.K. Daily Mail also said of the interview:

“CNN reporter forces Madison Cawthorn, 25, to admit there was NO voter fraud despite the GOP rep controversially voting to cancel Joe Biden’s election win”