News and Commentary

Tom Cotton Compares ‘Anarchists And Insurrectionists’ In Portland To Confederacy

"The federal government has a responsibility to defend its installations and its property."

   DailyWire.com
Pictured: (l-r) Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) appears on "Meet the Press" in Washington, D.C., Sunday, Jan. 21, 2018.
Photo by: William B. Plowman/NBC/NBC Newswire/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) urged the Trump administration not to tolerate protesters destroying federal property in Portland, Oregon, and likened their behavior to the Confederates who fired on Fort Sumter in 1861 and started the Civil War.

“The federal government cannot allow anarchists and insurrectionists [to] destroy federal courthouses, federal buildings, or other federal property,” Cotton said Tuesday on “Fox & Friends.” “These insurrectionists in the streets of Portland are little different from the insurrectionists who seceded from the Union in 1861 in South Carolina and tried to take over Fort Sumter.”

“And just like President Lincoln wouldn’t stand for that,” Cotton continued, “the federal government today cannot stand for the vandalism, the firebombing, or any attacks on federal property. It is right to send federal law enforcement in to defend federal property and federal facilities.”

“The radical left-wing mayor, who is basically in league with the ‘defund the police’ anarchists on the street, [has] seen over 50 days of rioting and looting and anarchy in their streets,” he added. “But, if you see something similar in other cities, where anarchists, insurrectionists are attacking courthouses, attacking federal buildings, attacking federal land and property, then of course the federal government has a responsibility to defend its installations and its property.”

Portland has been at the center of national attention recently after federal troops from Customs and Border Protection’s Border Patrol Tactical Unit, as well as the U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group, began allegedly whisking suspected rioters away in unmarked vans. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) likened such tactics to the Nazi Gestapo, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) even described the federal troops as Trump’s “stormtroopers.

Cotton sparked backlash when he published an op-ed in The New York Times last month calling for the federal government to “send in the troops” in response to violent protests that erupted nationwide in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

“One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers,” Cotton wrote. “But local law enforcement in some cities desperately needs backup, while delusional politicians in other cities refuse to do what’s necessary to uphold the rule of law.”

The NYT later backtracked on publishing Cotton’s piece, appending an extensive statement to the op-ed that said in part, “We have concluded that the essay fell short of our standards and should not have been published.

Speaking with “Fox & Friends,” Cotton derided The New York Times as “a national laughingstock,” adding, “Ever since they apologized for running my op-ed last month without citing a single factual inaccuracy in it, ever since they fired their own editor for running that op-ed, it reads like a syllabus from a social justice seminar. So, I give little credit to what I see in the pages of The New York Times.”

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters, “By any objective standard, the violence, chaos, and anarchy in Portland is unacceptable. Yet Democrats continue to put politics above peace while this president seeks to restore law and order.”

RELATED: ‘Beginning Of The Ending Of This Democracy’: Jim Clyburn Accuses Trump And Barr Of Imposing ‘Gestapo Activities’

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