Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) called President Biden an “inept, geriatric despot” in a speech on the House floor Wednesday while criticizing the U.S. deployment of 3,000 troops to aid Eastern European allies as tensions heat up between Russia and Ukraine.
“Madam Speaker, the sons and daughters of America are not foot soldiers for your party’s inept, geriatric despot. They are not expendable pawns to be dispatched at the whims of an idiot, tossed carelessly around the world to Godforsaken caves and bloody sandboxes. They are Americans, worthy of honor and dignity. The only salute from them Joe Biden deserves involves one finger,” said the 26-year-old first-term lawmaker.
Cawthorn is not the first conservative pundit to use the word “geriatric” to describe Biden or accuse him of autocratic rule. Senate hopeful J.D. Vance, an Ohio Republican, previously tweeted in September that “Joe Biden is a geriatric tyrant” when criticizing the president’s COVID-19 plans.
Cawthorn went on to accuse Biden of using U.S. troops to feed the military industrial complex.
“Our greatness is forged in our resistance to interference. The war lobby has no ally in the America-first Republicans. We will preserve our strength through nationalism,” he said.
Biden, 79, has faced questions about his age since beginning his campaign for president. Asked in September 2019 about “concerns” regarding his age and health, Biden responded to a reporter: “What the hell concerns? You wanna wrestle?”
And despite his age, Biden has insisted that he intends to run for reelection in 2024.
Cawthorn on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit against members of the North Carolina State Board of Elections over the effort to disqualify him from running for reelection because of his involvement in a rally that took place soon before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
He called the challenge, filed by 11 members of the body in January, “unconstitutional.”
“Running for office is not only a great privilege, it is a right protected under the Constitution,” Cawthorn said in a statement Tuesday. “I love this country and have never engaged in, or would ever engage in, an insurrection against the United States.”