Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) on Tuesday challenged Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), who uses a wheelchair, to a “sprint” to win Kyle Rittenhouse as a congressional intern.
During an interview on Newsmax, Boebert celebrated the acquittal of Rittenhouse, who went to a police brutality protest in Wisconsin last year armed with an AR-15-style rifle and shot three people, killing two of them.
Far-right House members including Boebert, Cawthorn, Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) have since crowed about bringing the teenager on board as an intern.
“Now I do have some colleagues on the Hill who have, just like me, offered Kyle Rittenhouse an internship in their office,” she told host Sebastian Gorka, a former aide to Donald Trump. “And Madison Cawthorn, he said that he would arm wrestle me for this Kyle Rittenhouse internship. But Madison Cawthorn has some pretty big guns, and so I would like to challenge him to a sprint instead.”
“Let’s make this fair,” she added, laughing.
Gorka offered to arm wrestle Cawthorn, who was partially paralyzed in a 2014 car accident, in Boebert’s stead.
“Allow me to arm wrestle him on your behalf. I love a good arm wrestle, and I would be happy ― Madison’s a buddy ― I’d be happy to arm wrestle him on your behalf,” he said.
Her comment stunned some prominent viewers.
“What,” tweeted retiring Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.).
Joe Walsh, a former Republican candidate for president, said a clip of the exchange was “today’s Republican Party in a nutshell.”
A defense attorney for Rittenhouse told Insider last week that he thought it was “disgusting” that some prominent Republicans were trying to profit from his 18-year-old client’s acquittal.
“They’re raising money on it, and you have all these Republican congressmen saying come work for me,” said Mark Richards, who represented Rittenhouse in the Kenosha, Wisconsin, homicide trial. “They want to trade on his celebrity, and I think it’s disgusting.”