A super PAC affiliated with Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) spent more than $300,000 to air an ad targeting fellow North Carolina lawmaker Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R).
The video ad, titled “Madison Cawthorn’s Lies,” was uploaded to Youtube on Thursday by Results for NC, a super PAC tied to Tillis. The ad will also air on cable.
The video knocks Cawthorn as an “attention-seeking embarrassment” to the Republican Party.
“Madison Cawthorn lies for the limelight,” the ad says. “Cawthorn will lie about anything.”
Results for NC spent $310,000 on the ad, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission.
Axios was first to report the ad buy.
The Hill has reached out to the Cawthorn campaign for comment.
Cawthorn has drawn scrutiny among his Republican colleagues for controversial comments he made on a podcast, stating that in Washington, D.C., elitists ask you to “come to an orgy” and do cocaine at parties.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said after the news broke that Cawthorn should “turn himself around.”
He called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “a thug” amid Russia’s violent invasion of the former Soviet state.
The PAC’s ad knocking Cawthorn, 26, comes as the first-term lawmaker faces several primary challengers who view him as vulnerable in the state of North Carolina.
Tillis endorsed state Sen. Chuck Edwards (R) in the primary race against Cawthorn.
“Unfortunately, Madison Cawthorn has fallen well short of the most basic standards Western North Carolina expects from their representatives,” Tillis said in a March statement.
Politico obtained photos on Friday of Cawthorn wearing women’s lingerie at what appeared to be a party. The lawmaker later tweeted that the photo was taken on a cruise during a game before he was elected to Congress.
The photos were revealed after Cawthorn hit Democrats for what he said was their “war on biology” during remarks on the House floor.
“Your left-wing movement is forcing children to endure radical expressions of sexuality. And yet, you can’t even define what a woman is. You might amend the bill, but you’ll never amend biology,” he said.