Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) posted a video to social media on Tuesday showing how he believes drivers should handle far-left protesters who sit in the street and block traffic.
Cotton promoted the video on X just a day after calling for people to confront protesters who block traffic and remove them from the road.
&#8220;I encourage people who get stuck behind the pro-Hamas mobs blocking traffic: take matters into your own hands to get them out of the way,&#8221; Cotton posted on X on Monday. &#8220;It’s time to put an end to this nonsense.&#8221;
Cotton’s remarks came as far-left pro-Palestinian protesters blocked roads across the country on Monday to protest Israel, which just endured an attack from Iran over the weekend.
The most notable examples of protesters blocking roads included Interstate 190 leading into O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Manhattan-bound traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.
Other examples included protesters shutting down Interstate 5 in Oregon, streets in Philadelphia, and the main road leading to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
Cotton then on Tuesday posted a video clip from late 2022 in France that showed a group of drivers getting out of their vehicles and dragging the protesters off the road so motorists could pass.
&#8220;How it should be done,&#8221; Cotton wrote in a post with the video.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
How it should be done:
<a href="https://t.co/xrLT8RQ8Mk">pic.twitter.com/xrLT8RQ8Mk</a>
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) <a href="https://twitter.com/TomCottonAR/status/1780230397252518127?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2024</a></blockquote>
Cotton also remarked during an interview with Fox News this week that in certain parts of the country, it would not be wise for protesters to block traffic on bridges because motorists might throw them off the side of the bridge.
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“Let’s just say I think there would be a lot of very wet criminals that would have been tossed overboard — not by law enforcement, but by the people whose road they are blocking,” he said. “If they glued their hands to their car or pavement, it’d probably be pretty painful to have their skin ripped off.”
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
These pro-Hamas extremists blocking roads across the country are Joe Biden’s base.
I feel for those with health emergencies, kids, and places to be who are stuck in traffic because of these criminals. <a href="https://t.co/CFi8R6xtla">pic.twitter.com/CFi8R6xtla</a>
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenTomCotton/status/1779949705696289080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 15, 2024</a></blockquote>

Tom Cotton

Tom Cotton Shares Video Of Drivers Removing Protesters From Road: ‘How It Should Be Done’

Congress

Politics

Protesters

Traffic

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) encouraged Americans this week to &#8220;take matters into your own hands&#8221; and remove protesters who are blocking roads.
Cotton&#8217;s remarks come as far-left pro-Palestinian protesters blocked roads across the country on Monday to protest Israel, which just endured an attack from Iran over the weekend.
The most notable examples of anti-Semitic protesters blocking roads included Interstate 190 leading into O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and Manhattan-bound traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.
Other examples included protesters shutting down Interstate 5 in Oregon, roads in Philadelphia, and the main road that leads to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
&#8220;I encourage people who get stuck behind the pro-Hamas mobs blocking traffic: take matters into your own hands to get them out of the way,&#8221; Cotton posted on X. &#8220;It&#8217;s time to put an end to this nonsense.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
I encourage people who get stuck behind the pro-Hamas mobs blocking traffic: take matters into your own hands to get them out of the way.
It&#8217;s time to put an end to this nonsense.
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) <a href="https://twitter.com/TomCottonAR/status/1780039918737121502?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2024</a></blockquote>
The protests were reportedly organized by the far-left extremist group A15 Action, which called for roads to be blocked in cities around the world to show &#8220;solidarity with Palestine&#8221; as Israel eliminates Hamas terrorists inside Gaza.
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“In each city, we will identify and blockade major choke points in the economy, focusing on points of production and circulation with the aim of causing the most economic impact,” the group said on its website. &#8220;There is a sense in the streets in this recent and unprecedented movement for Palestine that escalation has become necessary: there is a need to shift from symbolic actions to those that cause pain to the economy.&#8221;
The extremist group also lamented on its website that coalition forces were bombing Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen.

Senate Judiciary Committee Considers Nominations For Judges

Tom Cotton Encourages Americans To ‘Take Matters Into Your Own Hands’ And Remove Protesters From Roads

During a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Defense Secretary <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/lloyd-austin" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lloyd Austin</a> pushed back against claims of a genocide being committed in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/gaza" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gaza</a>, where <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/israel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Israel</a> is fighting <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/hamas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hamas terrorists.</a>
Sen. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/tom-cotton" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tom Cotton</a> (R-AR) asked Austin to give a response to activists, some of whom have <a href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/protesters-interrupt-secretary-of-defense-lloyd-austin-as-news-photo/2148025292?adppopup=true" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accused</a> the defense secretary himself of facilitating <a href="https://twitter.com/answercoalition/status/1739271658655932696" target="_blank" rel="noopener">genocide</a>, after he testified that Hamas has been committing war crimes by using civilians as human shields.
&#8220;We don&#8217;t have any evidence of genocide being created,&#8221; Austin said. When pressed to address whether Israel specifically is committing genocide, he added, &#8220;We don&#8217;t have evidence of that, to my knowledge.&#8221;
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COTTON: &quot;Address protestors: Is Israel committing genocide in Gaza?&quot; AUSTIN: &quot;We don&#39;t have any evidence of genocide being created&quot; &quot;So that&#39;s a no. Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza&quot; &quot;We don&#39;t have evidence of that&quot; &quot;Better than Dir. Burns and Dir. Haines did last month&quot; <a href="https://t.co/cdWd5Ue3hZ">pic.twitter.com/cdWd5Ue3hZ</a>
&mdash; Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) <a href="https://twitter.com/HowardMortman/status/1777716557017162126?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 9, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Cotton credited Austin with doing &#8220;better&#8221; than CIA Director William Burns and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines when they <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?534027-1/senate-select-intelligence-committee-hearing-global-threats" target="_blank" rel="noopener">testified</a> last month. When asked if Israel was &#8220;exterminating&#8221; the Palestinians, neither Burns nor Haines answered the question directly.
Israeli forces have been fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip for more than six months after Hamas launched an attack on Israel in October that killed roughly 1,200 people. Some on the Left, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/08/israel-gaza-war-elizabeth-warren-00151120" target="_blank" rel="noopener">claim</a> the war has escalated to the point of genocide.
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Austin stressed that the United States has been &#8220;committed to help assist Israel in defending its territory and its people by providing security assistance.&#8221; The defense secretary also said he &#8220;absolutely&#8221; denied accusations that he personally has facilitated genocide.
The United States continues to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/29/us-weapons-israel-gaza-war/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">supply weapons</a> to Israel, but the White House announced last week that President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/04/04/readout-of-president-joe-bidens-call-with-prime-minister-netanyahu-of-israel-3/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that further U.S. assistance would depend on steps taken to protect aid workers and civilians.
In the face of growing pushback from Biden over the campaign, as well as a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/03/25/1240669997/united-nations-security-council-cease-fire-resolution-gaza-israel-war" target="_blank" rel="noopener">demand</a> by the United Nations for a ceasefire, Netanyahu said on Sunday there would be <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/israel-withdraws-all-ground-troops-southern-gaza-leaving-one-idf-brigade-enclave" target="_blank" rel="noopener">no ceasefire</a> until all the remaining <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/idf-pulls-ground-troops-from-southern-gaza-stresses-war-is-not-over-until-hostages-are-free" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hostages are free</a>.
Austin <a href="https://twitter.com/SecDef/status/1777494200021369121" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in a post to X on Monday that he spoke with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant to discuss the &#8220;urgent need&#8221; to improve humanitarian assistance delivery to Gaza and protect aid workers. The secretary also said he &#8220;affirmed U.S. support to Israel in the face of Iranian threats.&#8221;

Lloyd Austin, US secretary of defense

Defense Secretary Austin Shoots Down Claims Of Genocide In Gaza

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Gaza

genocide

Global Politics

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Lloyd Austin

Pentagon

On Thursday, fiercely pro-Israel Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) led a group of GOP senators who blasted President Joe Biden in a <a href="https://twitter.com/SenTomCotton/status/1763584018807758991">letter</a> for “undermining Israeli operations against Hamas in Gaza.”
Biden issued a February 1 <a href="https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/932576/download?inline">executive order</a> in which he referred to Judea and Samaria as the “West Bank,” claimed there were “high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages, and property destruction,” all while ignoring the violence perpetrated against Israelis in the area.
“These actions undermine the foreign policy objectives of the United States, including the viability of a two-state solution and ensuring Israelis and Palestinians can attain equal measures of security, prosperity, and freedom. They also undermine the security of Israel,” he declared, adding, “These actions constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.”
On February 8, Biden issued a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2024/02/08/national-security-memorandum-on-safeguards-and-accountability-with-respect-to-transferred-defense-articles-and-defense-services/">National Security Memorandum</a> which stated that the United States had to “obtain credible and reliable written assurances from a representative of the recipient country as the Secretary of State deems appropriate that the recipient country will use any such defense articles in accordance with international humanitarian law and, as applicable, other international law,” thus leaving Israel vulnerable to “international law.”
“Both documents undercut our most valuable alliance in the Middle East,” Cotton and the other senators, including Ted Cruz of Texas, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, and Ted Budd of North Carolina, wrote. “We call on you to rescind both documents and to sanction terrorists and their supporters instead of their victims. Your February 1 EO grants the State Department broad authority to arbitrarily punish Israelis in Judea and Samaria, with no defined standards for determining when sanctions are warranted. Under the guise of ‘peace, security, or stability of the West Bank,’ it appears the State Department can punish arbitrarily any Israeli it wants.”
“Yet, the State Department hasn&#8217;t acted against the Palestinian Authority, which makes ‘pay to slay’ payments to terrorists for murdering innocent Israeli families,” the letter continued. “Nor has the State Department taken significant action to counter the surge in Palestinian terrorize in the West Bank, which increased by 350 percent in 2023, including 300 shooting attacks.”
“Your February 8 memorandum similarly — and falsely — implies that Israel is committing mass war crimes in its campaign against Hamas and threatens to cut off aid unless Israel meets arbitrary deadlines for providing ‘assurances’ regarding international humanitarian law,” the senators noted. “Yet, we already have rules requiring aid recipients to comply with applicable law and in line with American interests. Moreover, Israel has provided ample evidence of the steps it takes to avoid civilian casualties, which Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council, John Kirby, acknowledged publicly.”
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“You should immediately rescind both your February 1 order and February 8 memorandum. Further, please provide Congress no later than March 15 with a full explanation of what evidentiary basis and processes are intended to be employed when choosing to sanction Israelis while ignoring the serious crimes committed by the Palestinian Authority,” they concluded.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
My colleagues and I sent a letter to President Biden urging him to rescind his directives that are intended to undermine Israel. <a href="https://t.co/EhuKXd0dBl">pic.twitter.com/EhuKXd0dBl</a>
&mdash; Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenTomCotton/status/1763584018807758991?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 1, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Republican Senators Hold Capitol Hill News Conference On Border Enforcement

Tom Cotton Leads GOP Senators In Condemning Biden For ‘Undermining Israeli Operations In Gaza’

Joe Biden

The Senate Democrat chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4465102-senate-intel-democrat-worried-biden-campaign-joining-tiktok-mixed-message/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">criticized</a> President Biden for his reelection campaign joining the Chinese platform TikTok.
Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) reacted after the Biden campaign on Sunday posted a <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@bidenhq/video/7334529963066019114?embed_source=71929438%2C121374463%2C121351166%2C121331973%2C120811592%2C120810756%3Bnull%3Bembed_card_play&amp;refer=embed&amp;referer_url=thehill.com%2Fhomenews%2Fcampaign%2F4462234-biden-joins-tiktok-with-video-captioned-lol-hey-guys%2F&amp;referer_video_id=7334529963066019114" target="_blank" rel="noopener">video</a> on TikTok trying to show Biden as quick-witted. Asked by a voice offscreen, “Chiefs or 49ers,” Biden responded, “Two great quarterbacks. Hard to say. But if I didn’t say I was for the Eagles then I would be sleeping alone. My wife’s a Philly girl.”
“Game or commercials?” the voice prompted. “Game,” Biden answered.
“Game or halftime show?” he was asked. “Game.”
“Jason Kelce or Travis Kelce?” He responded: “Mama Kelce. I understand she makes great chocolate chip cookies.”
“Deviously plotting to rig the season so the Chiefs would make the Super Bowl or the Chiefs just being a good football team?”
“I’d get in trouble if I told you,” Biden replied.
By Tuesday the video had racked up 7.4 million views.
“I think at the end of the day, the Chinese Communist Party ­can not only get access to the data, but also, more importantly, can potentially drive the algorithms in terms of what you’re seeing,” Warner stated, “I’m a little worried about a mixed message.”
Last year, Warner joined South Dakota GOP Senator John Thune to sponsor the <a href="https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2023/3/senators-introduce-bipartisan-bill-to-tackle-national-security-threats-from-foreign-tech" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RESTRICT Act</a> to “comprehensively address the ongoing threat posed by technology from foreign adversaries by better empowering the Department of Commerce to review, prevent, and mitigate information communications and technology transactions that pose undue risk to our national security.”
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After the Biden campaign posted the video, Arkansas GOP Senator Tom Cotton tweeted, “TikTok is a spy app for the Chinese Communist Party. It’s used to push propaganda on American kids and steal data. It’s shameful that Biden is embracing TikTok to compensate for bad polls driven by his mental decline.”
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TikTok is a spy app for the Chinese Communist Party. 
It&#39;s used to push propaganda on American kids and steal data.
It&#39;s shameful that Biden is embracing TikTok to compensate for bad polls driven by his mental decline.
&mdash; Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) <a href="https://twitter.com/TomCottonAR/status/1757052494226600077?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 12, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst echoed, “TikTok was banned from all federal government devices because it’s a threat to our national security. That didn’t stop the Biden campaign from joining the CCP’s dangerous propaganda app.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
TikTok was banned from all federal government devices because it’s a threat to our national security.
That didn’t stop the Biden campaign from joining the CCP’s dangerous propaganda app.<a href="https://t.co/XJFCLqNpAn">https://t.co/XJFCLqNpAn</a>
&mdash; Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenJoniErnst/status/1757112639287685510?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 12, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Florida GOP Senator Marco Rubio has repeatedly warned about TikTok. Last August, he called for the banning of Chinese-controlled TikTok in an <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/08/08/as-tiktok-comes-for-american-businesses-its-past-time-to-ban-it/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">opinion piece</a>.
“TikTok’s public-policy chief blatantly lied under oath when he denied US data is stored in China,” Rubio wrote in his piece published by The New York Post. “ByteDance, TikTok’s China-based parent company, was caught in October using the app to spy on American journalists.”
Rubio noted that The New York Times reported TikTok stores Americans’ private information, which includes driver’s licenses, addresses, and device IDs, in China, where they can be accessed by ByteDance employees. He also pointed out that Forbes revealed the tax information and Social Security numbers of content creators on TikTok are also stored in China.
“Almost a third of the country uses TikTok semi-regularly,” Rubio pointed out. He delineated how TikTok is undercutting American companies by selling products more cheaply through its app. “Who, for that matter, will even be aware of American goods on the market when TikTok’s algorithm begins — as it surely will — to favor Chinese sellers?” he asked.
He referred to the disingenuousness of TikTok’s tactics when they said they were “celebrating” American small business in May when committing $1 million “to support Black and Brown” entrepreneurs and funding small businesses suing Montana for banning the app.
“China’s totalitarian regime hates the United States and is bent on displacing us as the world’s greatest power,” Rubio wrote. “If TikTok users believe their sensitive data are safe in Beijing’s hands — that Beijing wouldn’t use those data to influence, coerce, extort or spy on them in the case of a geopolitical conflict­­ — they need to think again.”

Senate Banking Committee Holds Annual Oversight Of Wall Street Firms

High-Ranking Senate Dem Issues Warning After Biden Campaign Joins TikTok

Biden Campaign

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Marco Rubio

Mark Warner

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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&#8217;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&#8217;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.”
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Cotton Rips Biden’s ‘Cowardly’ Response To Attacks On U.S. Troops: ‘Almost Every Case Against Empty Buildings Or Warehouses In The Middle Of Nowhere’

Houthis

Iran

U.S. troops

Sen. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/tom-cotton" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tom Cotton</a> (R-AR) endorsed former President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a> in the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/2024-election" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2024 election</a> on Wednesday.
<a href="https://twitter.com/TomCottonAR/status/1742554204193849683" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In a post to X</a>, the Arkansas Republican argued that the economy, border security, and national security were in a stronger position during Trump&#8217;s first term in the White House than they are under President Joe Biden.
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&#8220;When Donald Trump was president, America was safe, strong, and prosperous. The economy was booming, working-class wages were growing, our border was secure, and our enemies feared us,&#8221; Cotton said. &#8220;With Joe Biden as president, everything has gone to hell: families can’t afford groceries, our border is wide open to a full-blown invasion, and our enemies are starting wars everywhere.&#8221;
He added, &#8220;I endorse President Trump and I look forward to working with him to win back the White House and the Senate so we can help hardworking Arkansans suffering from Joe Biden’s disastrous policies. It’s time to get our country back on track.&#8221;
Trump had accrued 18 Senate endorsements as of the end of last year, <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3942482-2024-gop-primary-endorsements/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to The Hill&#8217;s tracker</a>. His other backers in the upper chamber include Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Mike Braun (R-IN), Katie Britt (R-AL), Ted Budd (R-NC), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Steve Daines (R-MT), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Josh Hawley (R-MO), John Hoeven (R-ND), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Roger Marshall (R-KS), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Eric Schmidt (R-MO), Rick Scott (R-FL), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), JD Vance (R-OH), and Roger Wicker (R-MS).
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Cotton&#8217;s support for Trump <a href="https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2016/10/10/tom-cotton-positioning-for-2020-still-backs-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dates back to the 2016 election</a>, but the senator has shown a willingness to break with the former president in recent years. For instance, Cotton <a href="https://www.axios.com/2021/01/04/donald-trump-tom-cotton-2020-election" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spoke out against</a> the GOP effort opposing the certification of Biden&#8217;s 2020 victory, prompting a Twitter swipe by Trump. In November 2022, Cotton dismissed the notion that Trump was the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tom-cotton-trump-not-gops-single-leader-we-have-important-other-leaders-like-ron-desantis-brian-kemp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;single leader&#8221;</a> of the GOP. And Cotton <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/25/trump-desantis-event-00084447" target="_blank" rel="noopener">attended</a> a gathering hosted by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as DeSantis weighed a run for the presidency in February of last year.
Trump is running for a second presidential term, potentially setting up a 2020 general election rematch against Biden, as he faces a slew of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jack-smith-urges-appeals-court-to-reject-trumps-immunity-defense" target="_blank" rel="noopener">criminal cases</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/maine-kicks-trump-off-2024-primary-ballot" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ballot access issues</a>. National polls also show Trump as the <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-r/2024/national/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">clear frontrunner</a> in a wide but shrinking GOP field that includes DeSantis. In addition to the Senate endorsements, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-majority-whip-tom-emmer-backs-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">close to 100 members of the GOP-Led House</a> have rallied behind Trump and at least seven governors. The numbers put Trump well ahead of his remaining Republican rivals less than two weeks before the Iowa caucuses.

Sen. Tom Cotton

Sen. Tom Cotton Endorses Trump For 2024 White House Run

2024 Election

2024 Primaries

Arkansas

Donald Trump

Republican Primary

U.S. Senate

James Bennet, now a columnist at The Economist, excoriated his former employer, The New York Times, in a damning tell-all about his exit from the Gray Lady.
Bennet told his side of the story of his June 2020 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/business/media/james-bennet-resigns-nytimes-op-ed.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">exit</a> from The New York Times in a <a href="https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/12/14/when-the-new-york-times-lost-its-way" target="_blank" rel="noopener">column</a> published in The Economist on Thursday. The 16,000-word article detailed the Times’ shift away from what Bennet describes as traditional journalistic principles toward a new and “illiberal” news philosophy.
“The Times’s problem has metastasised from liberal bias to illiberal bias, from an inclination to favour one side of the national debate to an impulse to shut debate down altogether,” Bennet wrote.
The article features critical portrayals of the Times’ publisher A.G. Sulzberger and former executive editor Dean Baquet, both of whom Bennet says sacrificed him instead of standing for principles they had previously claimed to believe.
“Since Adolph Ochs bought the paper in 1896, one of the most inspiring things the Times has said about itself is that it does its work ‘without fear or favour.’ That is not true of the institution today – it cannot be, not when its journalists are afraid to trust readers with a mainstream conservative argument such as [Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton’s], and its leaders are afraid to say otherwise,” Bennet said.
Bennet headed the editorial board and section of the Times until he says he was forced out at the paper in June 2020 over a published <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/opinion/tom-cotton-protests-military.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">op-ed</a> written by the conservative Republican Cotton, a staunch ally of then-President Donald Trump. In the op-ed, Cotton had advocated activating the military to protect Americans against rioters and looters who were terrorizing and destroying communities amid mass civil unrest over the death of George Floyd.
The Times’ editorial culture shifted after the paper “almost went bankrupt” during the 2007-08 financial crisis, Bennet said. The paper’s leadership and business managers, worried that the changing times necessitated a change in business strategy to stay viable, began pushing out many veteran reporters and editors to create openings for a younger and more internet-savvy cohort.
Many of those new journalists were poached from outlets such as The Huffington Post. The new journalists, like their former employers, had different ideas about the purpose and principles of journalism, and they imported those ideas to the Times, according to Bennet.
By the time Bennet rejoined the Times as editorial page editor in 2016, the cultural transformation was already well-underway.
The old liberal embrace of inclusive debate that reflected the country’s breadth of views had given way to a new intolerance for the opinions of roughly half of American voters. New progressive voices were celebrated within the Times. But in contrast to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, conservative voices – even eloquent anti-Trump conservative voices – were despised, regardless of how many leftists might surround them,” Bennet wrote.
In recounting the firestorm of those few days between the publishing of the Cotton op-ed and Bennet’s departure from the Times, Bennet said he had some regrets about how he handled the situation, including apologizing for publishing Cotton’s argument.
“I told the meeting that I was sorry for the pain that my leadership of Opinion had caused. What a pathetic thing to say. I did not think to add, because I’d lost track of this truth myself by then, that opinion journalism that never causes pain is not journalism. It can’t hope to move society forward,” Bennet wrote.
The Times contested Bennet’s version of events in a statement. Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha told Bennet in a statement: “The New York Times believes unequivocally in the principle of independence, as has been demonstrated consistently by our journalism before and since that episode. There are countless examples of the Times standing strong against pressure and protest, whether from governments, companies, politicians, activist groups or even internally. In the case of the Tom Cotton op-ed, the handling of such a sensitive piece, specifically the decision to rush it into publication without key leaders having read it because it was ‘newsy,’ made it unusually vulnerable to attack. Good principles, as the Cotton op-ed demonstrated, cannot be an excuse for bad execution.”

The New York Times

Ex-NYT Editor Forced Out Over Cotton Op-Ed Writes Damning Tell-All About Exit

New York Times

This week, Arkansas GOP senator Tom Cotton, a staunch supporter of the state of Israel and an equally staunch foe of Israel’s mortal enemy Iran, introduced a <a href="https://www.cotton.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/river_to_the_sea_resolution.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Senate resolution </a> condemning the slogan, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.”
The resolution states that the slogan and its derivations are a call for the genocide of Jewish people and the destruction of the Jewish state.
“People who invoke this disgraceful, antisemitic slogan are calling for the mass murder of Jews, whether they know it or not. On October 7, the world saw the genocidal intent of the phrase, ‘From the River to the Sea.’ No one who uses this phrase should escape condemnation,” Cotton <a href="https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cotton-colleagues-condemn-from-the-river-to-the-sea-slogan-as-an-antisemitic-call-for-the-destruction-of-israel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stated</a>.
Co-sponsors of the resolution included Senators Bill Hagerty (R-TN), John Barrasso (R-WY), Katie Britt (R-AL), Rick Scott (R-FL), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Marco Rubio (R-FL), John Kennedy (R-LA), John Boozman (R-AR), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Dan Sullivan (R-AL), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) John Thune (R-S.D), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), and James Lankford (R-OK).
Leading conservative British MP Suella Braverman wrote roughly one week after the October 7 Hamas massacre of 1200 Israelis that “From the river to the sea” is “a slogan that is widely understood as a demand for the destruction of Israel. Attempts to pretend otherwise are disingenuous. It means the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea- the boundaries of Israel &#8211; and comes from the dark days when most Palestinian groups sought to eliminate Israel. It was dropped by mainstream organisations after Israel and the PLO made peace with the 1993 Oslo Accords.”
“The slogan was taken up by Islamists, including Hamas, and remains a staple of antisemitic discourse,” she continued. “To hear it shouted in public causes alarm not just to Jews but to all decent people. Those who promote hate on Britain’s streets should realise that our tolerance has limits.”
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Last weekend an intimidating mob marched through London chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” &#8211; a slogan that is widely understood as a demand for the destruction of Israel. Attempts to pretend otherwise are disingenuous. 1/3
&mdash; Suella Braverman MP (@SuellaBraverman) <a href="https://twitter.com/SuellaBraverman/status/1713897073915945089?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 16, 2023</a></blockquote>
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The slogan was taken up by Islamists, including Hamas, and remains a staple of antisemitic discourse. To hear it shouted in public causes alarm not just to Jews but to all decent people. Those who promote hate on Britain’s streets should realise that our tolerance has limits. 3/3
&mdash; Suella Braverman MP (@SuellaBraverman) <a href="https://twitter.com/SuellaBraverman/status/1713897078923870634?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 16, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Cotton, who served in combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has opposed Iran for years. He led the fight against the Iran nuclear deal, signed by Barack Obama.
In mid-October, just after the Hamas massacre, President Biden nominated Jack Lew as the new ambassador to Israel. Cotton <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4256992-cotton-slams-us-ambassador-to-israel-nominee-as-iran-sympathizer/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fiercely criticized</a> the choice when he was asked if the Senate should expedite the nomination, saying, “Absolutely not. Jack Lew is an Iran sympathizer who has no business being our ambassador. It’s bad for the United States. It’s bad for Israel to have an Iran sympathizer as our ambassador to that country. He helped Iran evade American sanctions, and he lied to Congress about it. He defended the Obama administration’s refusal to use our veto … in the final days of the Obama administration to protect Israel from anti-Semitic resolutions.”
On December 2, Cotton <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/foreign/cotton-obama-era-policies-elevate-iran" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stated</a>, “From 2009 forward and under Barack Obama first and now Joe Biden — Democratic Party&#8217;s Middle East policy has been to elevate Iran and to empower Iran, in part because of Barack Obama’s delusional ideological beliefs that it’s the United States to blame for the tensions our country has had with Iran going back to 1979. Not the crazed Ayatollah who took Americans hostage and held them more than 400 days or have been killing Americans in various ways and places ever since. But Barack Obama believed it was Iran that was faulted by the United States.”

Cotton Introduces Resolution Condemning ‘From The River To The Sea’ Mantra

Palestinians

Arkansas GOP Senator Tom Cotton ripped President Joe Biden when he discussed American hostages still held by the terrorist group Hamas, asserting that the terrorist group is simply contemptuous of Biden.
Cotton <a href="https://grabien.com/story.php?id=449323&amp;utm_source=cliplist&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=cliplist20231127&amp;utm_content=story449323" target="_blank" rel="noopener">appeared</a> on Fox News with Shannon Bream, who noted Cotton’s service in the military overseas, then asked, “What do you make about this call for using special forces to get our folks out?”
“We should certainly be open to that; we have elite special operation forces who are specifically trained in hostage rescue,” Cotton answered, before pointing out that any action would have to be coordinated with the Israeli forces fighting Hamas in Gaza. “I do think we have to be deferential to the Israelis, to the Israeli government and the Israeli Defense Forces about the tactical situation on the ground. But if American military forces are called upon and can provide a viable solution to get out American citizens and the citizens of Israel or other nations then we have to be open to that.”
Then he took aim at Biden’s perceived weakness among terrorist groups abroad:
<blockquote>
But again, it’s not just those small special operations units that we have trained; we have two aircraft carriers in the region; we’ve increased the number of troops and aircraft in the region. Yet Hamas is still so contemptuous of President Biden that it hasn&#8217;t yet released American hostages. 
This would never have happened under Donald Trump or Ronald Reagan. In fact, if you will recall Jimmy Carter had a hostage crisis with Iran, Hamas’ patron, for over 400 days. Iran released those hostages the day Ronald Reagan took office, because they were so scared of what Ronald Reagan might do to them.  You don’t see that kind of fear of President Biden from Hamas, or Iran, or frankly, anyone around the world.
</blockquote>
Even before Biden was elected president, Cotton — who deployed to both Afghanistan and Iraq, serving in combat units including the 506th Infantry Regiment and the 101st Airborne — slammed Biden before for his weakness on foreign policy; in April 2020, Cotton penned a piece titled, “<a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/03/joe-biden-is-chinas-choice-for-president/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joe Biden Is China’s Choice for President</a>.”
Cotton listed Biden’s actions: Biden had shot down opposition to granting China most-favored-nation trade status and World Trade Organization membership in the 1990s when Biden served as the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as well as Biden praising Chinese president Xi Jinping as he seized absolute power. Cotton also said that Biden “continued to push for closer ties [with China] and even more trade,” while millions of American jobs were being lost. He concluded, “The competition between the United States and China, strategic and economic, will define the next century for our nation. We will need to be led by presidents for whom there’s no question as to which side they are on.”

Merrick Garland Testifies Before Senate Judiciary Committee

Tom Cotton: Hamas ‘Contemptuous’ Of Biden

Hostages

Ronald Reagan

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said during an interview over the weekend that the only way to stop Iranian attacks against U.S. forces in the Middle East would be to launch a &#8220;massive retaliation&#8221; against the country.
Cotton told &#8220;Fox News Sunday&#8221; anchor Shannon Bream that under President Joe Biden, Iran and its proxies have launched approximately 150 attacks against U.S. forces in the Middle East, including at least 66 since October 17.
“We’ve only hit back a few times. When we do hit back, it’s almost always at empty proxy warehouses or maybe proxy forces in Iraq and Syria,” Cotton said. “It seems like the president wants to go out of his way to avoid Iranian casualties. I would target Iranians who are operating in Iraq and in Syria. I would also send a clear message to Iran if these attacks don’t stop immediately, then we’ll begin to threaten their assets.”
Cotton dismissed fears from weak-kneed politicians who fear escalating militarily against Iran.
“What Reagan did when he sank half of Iran’s navy, it didn’t lead to an open, outright war,” he said. “After Donald Trump directed [the] killing of Qasem Soleimani in Iraq, Iran’s terrorist mastermind, Iran pulled in its horns for the rest of Trump’s era.”
“The way to stop these attacks is not be fearful and hesitant and cautious in a response, but massive retaliation to make it clear we will not tolerate these attacks on Americans,” he added.
He said a &#8220;clear message&#8221; needed to be sent to Iran that if the threats do not stop immediately that the U.S. &#8220;will begin to threaten their assets.&#8221;
The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/12/us/politics/us-airstrikes-syria.html">reported</a> that Biden has “rejected more aggressive bombing options proposed by the Pentagon” to keep U.S. forces safe because he is afraid of “provoking” Iran.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
WATCH: <a href="https://twitter.com/SenTomCotton?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SenTomCotton</a> reacts to the temporary cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war. <a href="https://t.co/i0hAeDw3Jt">pic.twitter.com/i0hAeDw3Jt</a>
&mdash; Fox News Sunday (@FoxNewsSunday) <a href="https://twitter.com/FoxNewsSunday/status/1728812461061509247?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 26, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Senate Judiciary Committee Examines Texas’s Abortion Law

Senator Cotton: A ‘Massive Retaliation’ Against Iran Directly Is Only Way To Stop Attacks On U.S. Forces

Fox News Sunday

Sen. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tom-cotton-says-federal-law-requires-dhs-to-deport-foreign-nationals-who-expressed-support-for-hamas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tom Cotton</a> (R-AR), who works closely with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, said Friday that President Joe Biden’s request for $105 billion in foreign aid doesn’t stand a chance to pass the Senate in its current form.
Biden announced the foreign aid package that sends $60 billion to Ukraine and includes $3.5 billion for Gaza during his address to the nation on Thursday. The president touted the package as vital support for Israel as well, but the majority of the funds would go to Ukraine. While Ukraine would receive $60 billion under the aid package, Israel would be sent $14 billion for “sharpen[ing] Israel’s military edge,” to replenish its Iron Dome, and to send a message to Iran that the U.S. stands with Israel, Biden <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-addresses-nation-in-oval-office-speech-about-wars-in-ukraine-israel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. 
“President Biden’s slush fund proposal is dead on arrival, just like his budgets. We will not spend, for example, $3.5 billion to address the ‘potential needs of Gazans,’ essentially functioning as a resupply line for Hamas terrorists,” Cotton said in a <a href="https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cotton-biden-supplemental-spending-proposal-is-dead-on-arrival" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a>. 
“We will also not spend $11.8 billion to fund the Ukrainian government’s own non-war spending, such as funding retirement pensions for Ukrainian government employees,” the senator added. “Nor will we spend $4.7 billion for housing, transportation, and ‘services’ for illegal aliens in the United States rather than deporting them.” 
Biden sent his $105 billion request to Congress Friday hours after his Oval Office address. As the House continues to search for a speaker after Republicans’ failed attempts to elect Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Senate Democrats will quickly move to pass Biden’s budget request. 
“This legislation is too important to wait for the House to settle their chaos,” he said. “Senate Democrats will move expeditiously on this request, and we hope that our Republican colleagues across the aisle will join us to pass this much-needed funding.” 
McConnell (R-KY) signaled his support for the aide package but <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4267710-mcconnell-urges-action-spending-israel-ukraine/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> the Senate “must produce our own supplemental legislation that meets the demonstrated needs of our national security.” He encouraged his colleagues to work quickly as &#8220;a number of serious challenges to the U.S. national security require the Senate’s urgent attention.&#8221; 
Another Republican senator, John Cornyn of Texas, expressed that he supports aid to Ukraine and Israel, but added that “without meaningful and substantive policy changes that will address the #BidenBorderCrisis such aid is in serious jeopardy.” Meanwhile, Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) said the funding request from Biden will provide the administration with “more money to fuel its disastrous open-borders resettlement operation” and “worsen the border crisis.” 
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In his statement, Cotton promised that Biden’s proposal would be blocked, and Republicans would get to work crafting a better bill. 
“The Biden proposal is going nowhere, and Senate Republicans will take the lead on crafting a funding bill that protects Americans and their interests,” he said.

Tom Cotton Says Biden’s $100B Request That Includes Aid For Gaza Is ‘Dead On Arrival’

Biden Administration

Mitch McConnell

Senate

Ukraine

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