One Republican member of Congress allegedly got into a physical altercation with one of his constituents over the weekend.

That's according to the Charlotte Observer, which reported Tuesday that Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) has been accused of being the aggressor in a spat that took place over the weekend at Asheville, North Carolina's Rotary District 7670. Rotarian Guy Gooder, who organized the event Edwards spoke at on Saturday, witnessed the confrontation that ensued immediately after Edwards' speech.

According to Gooder, Edwards was supposed to speak about Hurricane Helene relief and recovery efforts in Asheville, which bore the brunt of damage of the Category 4 Storm that ravaged multiple states last fall. However, Edwards strayed from the topic and spent the bulk of his speech attacking various projects the Rotary Club was involved in.

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“He spent 30 minutes basically insulting the Rotarians’ intelligence in his speech,” Gooder told the Observer. “He insulted many of the programs that we partner with, agencies like the State Department, and the [World Health Organization], which is polio eradication, insulted those departments, talked about maybe we can get some funding back to the State Department for polio, so our efforts can continue."

After his speech, Edwards walked down the center aisle of the room. According to Gooder, that's when the altercation with another Rotary Club member took place. He viewed the tension as a natural result of Edwards' speech, telling the paper: "If you do that for 30 minutes and you walk past somebody, they’re probably going to insult you back."

"The Rotarian basically said that was a load of B.S. Chuck stops and kind of bends over, kind of in-his-face type of stuff. And then it continues from there," Gooder recalled, saying that after words were exchanged, the congressman "hit the guy with his clipboard."

Edwards' office eventually released a statement saying that the North Carolina Republican "refused to engage with an intoxicated man that was cursing" who "became more belligerent and later called the police." But Gooder insisted that the Rotary Club member was acting normally and that had he been belligerent, he would have been removed from the premises.

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Read the Observer's full article here.

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