Fox News Hosts Fail to Ask Rep. Madison Cawthorn About Recent Sexual Misconduct Claims Against Him
Fox & Friends First gave Congressman Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) something of a pass on the sexual harassment allegations raised against him and instead asked him about the “canceling” of Dr. Seuss instead.
Todd Piro and Ashley Strohmier interviewed Cawthorn on Fox & Friends First, where the topics ranged from election laws to the Biden Administration’s border policy. The interview turned to the lighter side, however, when Piro asked Cawthorn to react to President Joe Biden omitting Seuss from his proclamation for Read Across America Day.
The news comes after Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced they would no longer publish six of the author’s children’s books because they contain racist imagery that the company acknowledges as “hurtful and wrong.” Piro emphasized he was “fired up” over the “canceling,” saying it’s “getting more and more outlandish by the day.”
Cawthorn responded by calling it an “absurd” example of “cancel culture” and the Democrats’ priorities. Shortly after that, Piro conceded most Americans might have bigger things to think about than the Seuss news right now.
“Also let’s realize One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish is not as concerning as, I don’t know, China,” Piro said.
During the conversation, there was no mention of how Cawthorn is witnessing scrutiny into his biography, nor the women who’ve accused him of sexual harassment and misconduct. Washington Post spoke to Katrina Krulikas, an acquaintance of Cawthorn’s who recalled how she went on a date with him when they were teenagers, and things took an unsettling turn when they drove to a “deserted part of town and he took me to the woods.”
Krulikas said she felt uncomfortable because Cawthorn was asking her “All these very intimate, pressing questions” that seemed unusual from those in their conservative community. She said that Cawthorn eventually tried to kiss her, and even after she said no, he “suddenly” moved in again “as if to try to kiss me so quickly that I wouldn’t have a choice to say no or push him away.”
From WaPo:
“I’m so startled that I fall back. My hair gets stuck in his chair. I’m ripping my hair out, trying to get out of the situation.”
Returning home, Krulikas said she texted a friend that she would never feel comfortable being alone with Cawthorn again. At the time, she didn’t complain because she felt she had “put myself in that situation.” But as she grew older, she said, she believed Cawthorn deserved blame, and “I definitely would classify it as sexual assault because he knew I said no.”
Cawthorn has denied any misconduct from himself in the past, but CNN spoke to Caitlin Coulter, one of his former classmates who corroborated the accusations against him. Coulter spoke of how she was one of the women Cawthorn would invite on “fun drives,” where he’d take them on dates before making unwanted advances.
“His MO was to take vulnerable women out on these rides with him in the car, and to make advances,” Coulter said. She added that she shut Cawthorn down after he asked her a number of forward questions, and “He got really upset. And he whipped the car around and started going back to campus at 70-80 miles an hour on these one-lane roads…It was really scary.”
Watch above, via Fox News.
