Newbie GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) may have riled up Trump supporters in the Capitol on Jan. 6 ahead of that day’s deadly riots, but in retrospect, he’s pretty sure the whole thing could’ve been avoided if only he or QAnon-curious Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) had “gone to the front steps” of the Capitol building to save the day. Calling the violent mayhem that day a “great bonding experience” but also reminiscent of “a scene from Lord of the Rings,” Cawthorn lamented to New York Magazine that he hadn’t immediately recognized the chance that fate was laying at his feet that day. “I genuinely believe, had we realized what was going on and sent myself, or maybe Lauren Boebert, some of these people who are just very recognizable to, kind of, the MAGA crowd; in the wheelchair, I probably would’ve been better, because it’s very easily recognizable. I might’ve just gone to the front steps,” he was quoted saying. “I think we could’ve stopped them.”

The right-wing darling, who emphasized that he had responded to the day’s events “with an abundance of calm” while several other lawmakers were “vividly, visibly afraid,” also compared the rioters to “orcs” and seemed to view the chaos in magical terms. “You kind of see the orcs—Helm’s Deep, or taking over Minas Tirith, whatever—it just looks like the enemy is on something that they’re not supposed to be on…,” he said. As the magazine noted, Cawthorn had previously invoked Harry Potter to describe his new role in Congress, saying in an earlier interview that it was like being “handed a wand” with “incredible power.”