In March 2021, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) tweeted that the Senate, controlled by Democrats, “voted on an amendment to exclude prisoners—like the Boston Bomber—from getting stimulus checks. Every Democrat voted to send checks to prisoners, and every Republican voted to stop prisoners from getting checks.”
The left recognizes that this was a bad idea and that they're going to pay a price at the polls.
Get ready for campaign ads.
So liberals and their media allies are trying to spin it for damage control.
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) March 8, 2021
He added, “The left recognizes that this was a bad idea and that they’re going to pay a price at the polls. Get ready for campaign ads. So liberals and their media allies are trying to spin it for damage control.”
In response to Cotton’s tweet two days earlier saying that the mass-murderer behind the 2015 Charleston church shooting would receive a stimulus check and also responding to Republicans’ actions in the Senate, Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler wrote in an article titled, “Murderers, undocumented immigrants: Hyped-up claims about who’s getting stimulus checks,” “Every Senate bill that proceeds on a fast-track process known as reconciliation features a strange ritual called ‘vote-a-rama,’ as lawmakers race through a number of votes on amendments. If you are in the minority, as Republicans are now, it’s a moment when you can offer finely tuned amendments that are destined to fail but will serve up red meat for voters in later elections.”
Kessler continued, “These quotes are an example of this process in action, with Cotton tweeting a talking point just hours after the coronavirus stimulus bill was approved. Cotton isn’t shy about his intentions either. On March 8, he tweeted that [name withheld], the Boston bomber, would also get benefits and declared, “Get ready for campaign ads.”
Kessler called Cotton’s rhetoric “scaremongering” and gave Cotton “two Pinocchios.”
But on Thursday, after news broke that one of the Boston bomber’s would indeed receive a stimulus check, Kessler backtracked in a way, acknowledging the fact but still defending himself, and printing a heads-up he had received from Cotton’s press secretary, James Arnold, who wrote:
You portrayed Senator Cotton’s amendment as pure political theater—”not serious legislation”—warning of an outcome that, according to your article, was very unlikely to happen….Now that it has in fact happened, we’re asking that you update your story to include that Senator Cotton’s concerns did come true and that his amendment would have prevented it. … we also disagree with your claims that Senator Cotton’s efforts were solely political, designed only for campaign ads etc., instead of based on legitimate policy disagreements.
Kessler defended himself, writing, “Cotton primarily received the Two-Pinocchio rating because his comments lacked context. He suggested this problem was the result of something Democrats did, when he had previously voted for legislation with the same language that allowed for checks to be issued to prisoners. He also made it clear that he intended weaponize this debate for campaign ads.”
He concluded, “… in retrospect, the use of the phrase of ‘scaremongering’ was inappropriate. Cotton had raised a legitimate issue of concern, even if he framed it in a political way. The term ‘hyped up’ in the headline went too far as well. Thus, we will reduce the rating on this claim to One Pinocchio — our version of ‘mostly true.’”
“Wait until you hear what he predicted about the origins of COVID-19,” one commentator tweeted.