'Not defensible': House GOP gets squeamish over Madison Cawthorn's attacks on 'thug' Zelenskyy

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) is facing some blowback from fellow House Republicans over his attacks on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

After video emerged recently of Cawthorn dismissing Ukraine as a "corrupt" country while calling Zelenskyy a "thug," many Republicans on Friday who spoke with CNN expressed discomfort with the freshman North Carolina congressman.

"Madison is wrong, if there's any thug in this world it's Putin," House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Friday. "You just watched Putin directing Russia bomb a maternity ward. We watched yesterday in a theater that's identified in the front and the back from the air that you're housing children -- bombed."

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Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR) said Cawthorn's comments were "not... defensible," although he wouldn't comment on whether he thought it was productive to have Cawthorn in the conference.

Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC) had an even more scathing assessment of Cawthorn.

"Madison Cawthorn has said he is here for PR and not legislating," Rice said. "I don't think he's a serious legislator. I think he's more interested in throwing bombs than he is in actually trying to help the country. I don't think he has very much respect for the Republican conference or anywhere else."

NOW WATCH: Ted Lieu hilariously shames GOP's failure to discipline members who attended white nationalist conference

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