Former President Donald Trump made one of his first major public appearances since losing the 2020 election, returning to the battleground state of North Carolina on June 5 and dispelling any doubts about who’s really wielding power in the Republican Party. 

After almost five months in office, Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-Hendersonville, has his first look into the major political questions that have arisen during his short, tumultuous tenure – namely, his approval rating among Republicans, the state of the Republican Party and their current opinion of former President Donald Trump.

Some people will say a gay woman who’s a Christian minister just can’t get elected in the South.

Madison Cawthorn, rolling himself around the Longworth House Office Building, draws attention from around every corner and down every straightaway of the labyrinthine tunnels that underlie Washington D.C.’s Capitol Complex, greeting passersby with their first name. 

Last week, as elected members of the House of Representatives and the Senate gathered in their respective chambers to certify electoral votes, Western North Carolina’s newly-elected Republican congressman began to notice that something wasn’t quite right. 

Newly-elected Western North Carolina Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorn, R-Hendersonville, hadn’t yet been on the job for three whole days before witnessing perhaps the most consequential day in American politics since the start of the Civil War.

On a frosty Appalachian mountain morning in 1962, 22-year-old Waynesville man Charles Miller brought his car to a stop on a little-used road not far from a rushing creek in a rugged, remote section of Haywood County. 

By Steve Wall • Guest Columnist | On Sept. 10, 2020, Donald Trump greeted a cheering crowd in Freeland, Michigan, with these exact words: “We brought you a lot of car plants, Michigan! We brought you a LOT of car plants. You know that, right!”

This was greeted with excited cheers. So I have to wonder — did many of the people in the crowd realize there were no new car plants built in Michigan during the Trump administration? Were any aware that over 3,000 workers in the Michigan auto industry had lost their jobs since 2017?

Less than three weeks from Election Day, California senator and Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris will visit the North Carolina cities of Asheville and Charlotte.

By Mike Leatherwood • Guest Columnist | When I was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers in 1963, I took this oath: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”