Arkansas GOP Senator Tom Cotton slammed President Biden for his feckless response to attacks by Iranian-backed forces that have killed American troops, noting that Biden’s responses have been targeted in “almost every case against empty buildings or warehouses in the middle of nowhere.”
Cotton appeared on Fox News with hosts Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer. Perino quoted a Washington Post columnist ripping Cotton and fellow GOP Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) for calling for action to respond to the killing of U.S. troops by Iranian-backed forces, saying of their comments “irresponsible actions without bearing responsibility for the outcome is a senatorial perk.”
“What would you say is actually ‘irresponsible’ in this situation?” Perino asked.
“What’s irresponsible is the 11 years of the Obama-Biden foreign policy towards Iran of trying to appease, coddle, and conciliate ayatollahs who still chant to this day, ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel,’” Cotton replied. “That’s why we have all these attacks on Americans.”
“Bill, you laid out the more than 160 attacks since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7,” he said to Hemmer. “That didn’t start because of that October 7 atrocity; there were more than 100 attacks against Americans since Joe Biden took office before October 7th. How many times did we retaliate? Something like four or five. Almost every case against empty buildings or warehouses in the middle of nowhere. Again, that simply emboldened Iran and its proxies throughout the Middle East to continue these attacks. That’s the height of irresponsibility, a cowardly sniveling policy that led our troops as sitting ducks in a region because the commander-in-chief would not take action to protect them.”
Hemmer noted that when the U.S. attacked the Houthis in Yemen, “They knew it was coming, and they scattered, that could happen again.”
“Because, again, that’s a consequence of Joe Biden’s policy of fear and appeasement and conciliation,” Cotton asserted. “Just like with Ukraine and before that with Afghanistan, he’s scared of his own shadow. He keeps worrying about escalation. What we saw over the weekend was a massive escalation by Iran. The only way to solve that threat is to directly target Iran’s terrorist forces throughout the region and in Iran itself, to make it clear that we will never tolerate the deaths of our fellow Americans.”
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Asked if Biden had the authority to launch attacks without Congressional involvement, Cotton answered, “I believe the president always has the inherent Constitutional authority to use our military, to defend our troops, to retaliate for attacks on our troops, and to protect America’s interests. That’s central to the president’s Commander-in-Chief power. What I question is whether Joe Biden is worthy of wielding that power because he has not protected our troops or advanced our interests in the region for three years; he’s left them as sitting ducks, refusing to strike back whenever we are struck. That is my major concern.”