Republican Representative and Hitler enthusiast Madison Cawthorn is once again making headlines, this time for his fiery response to The Washington Post correcting one of its stories about the 2020 election.
According to Cawthorn, the Post was caught in a lie and had to "retract" its story about a phone call in which former Republican President Donald Trump pressured Georgia elections investigator Frances Watson to help him win the state.
But not only is that not what happened—the story is still live on the Post's website because a correction is not a retraction—but Cawthorn got the story itself wrong, centering it on a different phone call between Trump and Georgia's Secretary of State.
BREAKING: The Washington Post just RETRACTED their story on Trump’s phone call with Georgia’s Secretary of State.… https://t.co/FDhdO2Jbxu— Madison Cawthorn (@Madison Cawthorn) 1615833417.0
The Postissued the correction because the original story misquoted former President Trump's comments to Watson.
In its story, the Post quoted Trump as having told Watson to "find the fraud," which Trump never said. Rather, he told her to investigate ballots in Fulton County, where he said she would find "dishonesty."
Georgia's Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger later released a tape of the phone call with Watson which revealed Trump's actual quotes, so the Post appended a correction to the story and changed its headline and text accordingly.
But in Cawthorn's retelling, which cleverly includes only a screenshot of the correction rather than a link to the story, the Post knowingly lied and then retracted the story altogether, neither of which are true.
Worse still, Cawthorn seemed to think the correction at hand involved reporting about the damning phone call between Trump and Raffensberger, in which Trump attempted to impugn the integrity of Georgia's 2020 general election and pressured Raffensberger and other officials to tamper with the results in order to deliver him the state.
Either Cawthorn's reading comprehension is lacking or he's just blatantly lying.
Either way, people on Twitter were not about to let it slide.
@CawthornforNC ...Do you even know how to actually read?— parishkl 🏳️🌈🌊 (@parishkl 🏳️🌈🌊) 1615833793.0
@CawthornforNC Is there a competition among the GOP freshmen to see which one’s the stupidest?— Kevin M. Kruse (@Kevin M. Kruse) 1615849351.0
@CawthornforNC Nobody retracted anything. They issued a correction. A (correction) alerts your audience to factual… https://t.co/OZvXxcVp5v— Kristopher Reichert (@Kristopher Reichert) 1615833658.0
@CawthornforNC Congrats Clawthorn, you’ve just scored a big, fat “F” in reading comprehension!— P.G. Rocky (@P.G. Rocky) 1615833768.0
@CawthornforNC Madison just curious did you read the article, because it's a correction, and Bonespurs still asked… https://t.co/vEoAGaW5VX— robert bergey (@robert bergey) 1615834223.0
@CawthornforNC Read the story again. They did not retract the story about Trump's call with the Ga secretary of sta… https://t.co/tojwk5yCOs— Cinda Chima (@Cinda Chima) 1615834055.0
@CawthornforNC It’s truly sad that a United States congressman doesn’t understand what the word “lie” means. It’s h… https://t.co/UyVFhQRc1e— Ed Greenberger (@Ed Greenberger) 1615834926.0
@CawthornforNC They admitted they misquoted it. And they did. Hardly. Learn to read fool.— RIKKI (@RIKKI) 1615833606.0
@CawthornforNC You might want to read that retraction again, if you're capable of doing so. It doesn't say what yo… https://t.co/ToJfy8LAK8— CANCELtheGOP (@CANCELtheGOP) 1615833566.0
Speaking of retractions, after repeatedly parroting Trump's "Big Lie" accusations of election fraud in 2020, Cawthorn in January admitted live on air to CNN he believes the 2020 election was "not fraudulent."