Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-Ga.) is competing with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on who’s the dumbest of them all when it comes to the science of wearing a mask during a pandemic.

Every member of the House is required to wear a mask on the floor to protect themselves and others from contracting the coronavirus that has already killed 580,000 Americans. Wearing masks has been proven to lower infection rates and has proven crucial to beating the virus in conjunction with vaccinations. But many Republicans in Congress have decided to flout the rules by not wearing their masks and are refusing to get vaccinated, which has resulted in them being fined.

This week, Cawthorn defended his party’s anti-mask stance by claiming that the British would never have surrendered at Yorktown if George Washington had been wearing a mask.

“Imagine if we had George Washington trying to get the British to capitulate in Yorktown, except he had a mask on his face,” Cawthorn said. “That’s not who we’re descended from. We’re descended from men and women of valor who stood up for their own personal liberty and that’s what my friends and colleagues were doing on the House floor yesterday. I do believe it’s time for us to be leaders on this.”

Here’s the video via Twitter:

As usual, Republicans clearly don’t know American history because Cawthorn’s argument can be debunked just by the fact that Washington mandated smallpox vaccinations for everyone in his army. So, Washington would likely call out Cawthorn for cowardice and for endangering the health of his fellow citizens.

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) schooled Cawthorn in a response on Twitter:

Just like Greene’s comparison of mask mandates to the Holocaust, Cawthorn is proving to be just as ignorant and unfit to serve as a member of Congress. Knowing and understanding basic history should be a requirement for any candidate running for office because neither of them would have qualified for the ballot.

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