Trey Gowdy delivers 10-minute rant about Madison Cawthorn telling him to name names or stop making things up

‘Congress has enough problems without making things up’

Trey Gowdy has hit out at Madison Cawthorn dedicating 10 minutes of his Sunday night Fox News show to excoriating the congressman for his allegations about cocaine use and invitations to orgies amongst Republican lawmakers.

The former South Carolina representative is the latest to express his anger at the current North Carolina lawmaker over the allegations, demanding that he name names.

Mr Cawthorn made the allegations in a recent interview without saying who in the party he was referring to and caused a storm amongst members.

He has since been rebuked by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

Mr Gowdy said that Mr Cawthorn should come forward with who was indulging in such illegal and immoral behaviour because their constituents deserve to know how their representatives are spending their time at the taxpayers’ expense.

“My question for the congressman is simply this: who?” he said. “Give us the names. If you’re being invited to cocaine parties by colleagues, tell us who invited you. Who used illicit drugs in front of you? Who broke the laws they passed and expect us to follow?”

He also highlighted that in his own eight years in the House of Representatives, he had never seen such behaviour and listed off his fellow lawmakers in the lower and upper chambers of Congress and their distinctly vanilla pleasures — for example, ordering dessert, drinking milk, running an extra mile, going to the movies.

Mr Gowdy suggested that Mr Cawthorn was hanging around with the wrong people.

Further, he said that if the allegations were not true, and none of what was described really happened, then Mr Cawthorn should admit that too.

“Congress has enough problems without making things up,” said Mr Gowdy.

Mr Cawthorn has issued a statement following his controversial comments in which he claimed that he’s been invited to an “orgy” in Washington DC and that he’s seen anti-drug advocates do cocaine.

“Corruption and unethical activities exist in Washington. It’s an indisputable fact. If you don’t think that’s true, you’ve not witnessed the Swamp,” Mr Cawthorn claimed in a statement issued on Friday.

“My comments on a recent podcast appearance calling out corruption have been used by the left and the media to disparage my Republican colleagues and falsely insinuate their involvement in illicit activities,” he added.

Mr Gowdy noted that it is easy to claim the media can distort what was said, but not when there is video of you actually saying it.

“I made a modest living blaming the media for things,” said Mr Gowdy, “but you can’t blame the media for something that came out of your mouth.”

Mr Cawthorn will be speaking at a Trump rally in his home state in the near future, apparently having earned the support of former President Donald Trump, despite anger in much of the rest of the Republican Party.