What is it with Madison Cawthorn that he simply cannot stay out of trouble? The former congressman moved down to Florida with the plan of running again for Congress in a nice safe red district, but it looks like he’s counting his chickens way before they’re hatched. More on that later. For the moment, Cawthorn’s run ins with the police are beginning to become a legend. I thought it was a howler last year when he ran his car into a parked police squad car. That’s straight out of a sit com. But no, Cawthorn has to strive for greater notoreity. This time he failed to make a court appearance when he was ticketed for going 25 miles over the speed limit — in a car registered to somebody else, but he claimed not to know that. This space cadet wants back into our politics and into our lives. Daily Beast:
Madison Cawthorn’s political comeback has hit a roadblock after the former congressman was arrested for failing to appear in court. Axios reported last week that the scandal-prone Republican is preparing to run for a soon-to-be-vacant seat in Florida’s 19th District. However, he’ll need to get his legal affairs in order first, after being detained by authorities yet again.
This time, the 30-year-old was snared on a warrant issued after he was arrested in August for driving without a license. He was due in a Florida court to answer for that alleged infringement, but failed to appear.
Cops picked him up on Wednesday in Cape Coral, Florida, on a warrant issued in Collier County before releasing him on $2,000 bond.
His team blamed his packed schedule. In a statement given to ABC News affiliate Gulf Coast Now, his spokesperson said: “Former Congressman, Madison Cawthorn, was arrested earlier today for failure to appear for a routine traffic infraction. Madison keeps a very busy schedule and, due to a scheduling misunderstanding, did not appear in court this morning. Following processing Madison was immediately released.”
Cawthorn was elected in 2020 to represent North Carolina’s 11th District, becoming the youngest member of Congress and the first to be born in the 1990s, but served only one two-year term after losing out in a primary. He is no stranger to tangles with law enforcement, including a rash of traffic violations. In March 2022, he was charged with driving with a revoked license in North Carolina.
In October 2021, he was pulled over in the same state for allegedly driving 89 mph in a 65-mph zone. Highway Patrol footage suggests that Cawthorn didn’t even know he wasn’t the registered owner of the car he was driving.
Cawthorn, who was not carrying a license, told the traffic cop he was the owner of the vehicle before the officer ran the plates and found information to the contrary. “It looks like it’s registered to, I guess, your dad?” the officer said.
“Is it really?” Cawthorn responded. He got away with a ticket.
In April 2024, he slammed his vehicle into the parked car of a Florida State Trooper.
Will he get re-elected to Congress? God I hope not. A poster on Bluesky says, “He’s not going to win. The Naples plutocrats already have their boy to take over from Byron.” Byron Donalds, the current holder of the seat representing Florida’s 19th District is running for governor. Donalds is running with Trump’s blessing, but Paul Renner (Former Speaker of Florida House of Representatives) is running in the primary as well. It is possibile that Renner could get the nomination IF, and that’s a big if but not an implausible one, Floridians are tired of MAGA and think that the Trump-MAGA faction should yield back to some more normal Republican way of doing things.
Casey DeSantis has not come forward yet with a run for the governership but she may. Meanwhile, David Jolly, a former Republican who got sick of Trump’s and MAGAs antics, has become a Democrat and he’s running. He’s not the first or only Florida Republican to jump ship because of Trump. Some polls have Jolly within one point of Donalds, according to Newsweek.
If Jolly would prevail, that would flip the governship blue and that would be one hell of a repudiation of Trump and MAGA. Will it happen? I don’t know. But by this time next year a lot more bizarre antics will have taken place in Washington, that’s the only guarantee that we have.
So the future of Byron Donald’s is not assured. But even if it was carved in stone, that still does not equate to a shoo-in for Madison Cawthorn. Cawthorn had his chance and he blew it. The fact is, the man never had anything to bring to politics. He has nothing going for him but a pretty face. Fate put him in the right place at the right time to take over Mark Meadows’ vacant seat and then between talking about cocaine-fueled orgies and being videoed dry-humping his cousin’s head, he managed to screw up his political future soundly. And his arrest for trying to board a plane with a firearm didn’t help much either.
Cawthorn was a flash in the pan and he’s finished now. But maybe he needs to stick around for the 2026 election to find that out. Meanwhile, he’s driving his father’s car and maybe Dad also popped for the million dollar house in Cape Coral.
one of these days cawthorn will kill somebody either with drinking and driving or reckless speeding or both. Trump didn’t even put him in his administration, so there ya go. he ain’t going anywhere except to court👍