Madison Cawthorn Says Constitution Protects 'Unrestricted' Travel Without Vaccines

The GOP lawmaker failed to mention that time he tried to board a plane carrying a gun earlier this year.
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Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) has stepped in it again, insisting Americans have a “constitutional” right to completely “free and unrestricted” travel anywhere in the U.S. without being vaccinated.

As for unrestricted, he apparently forgot that time earlier this year when he was stopped trying to board a plane carrying a gun and ammunition, which is illegal and not protected by the Constitution.

Cawthorn didn’t cite which constitutional clause he thinks grants freedom to people who won’t get vaccinated against the coronavirus pandemic in his Newsmax interview. He failed to mention airline requirements like providing identification, wearing a seat belt and not smoking. The airline industry is regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration, which sets safety regulations.

He also missed a landmark 1905 Supreme Court decision, Jacobson v. Massachusetts, that said vaccines can be mandated by local governments in a case that involved smallpox.

Road travel, of course, requires things like a driver’s license and obedience to rules of the road. And not driving while intoxicated.

Some Twitter wags noted that Cawthorn he must have been talking about those Revolutionary War airports that Donald Trump once referred to, and that’s why “unrestricted” air travel was written into the Constitution ― somewhere.

It wasn’t a stellar day for Cawthorn. He was also featured Thursday in a new political video by the Really American PAC highlighting his violent threat last month that there will be “bloodshed” as he lied yet again that the presidential election was “rigged.”

The Trump-adoring lawmaker got plenty of pushback on “free and unrestricted” air travel on Twitter:

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