Tom Cotton

He’s an Iraq war vet, a close ally of President Trump, the second youngest senator, known for his hard line views This Week on Firing Line.

COTTON @ RNC SOT:  My generation is fighting//to make America Safe Again!

By the the time he enlisted to serve in Iraq, Tom Cotton had not one but two Harvard degrees.

A long way to travel for the boy who grew up on a cattle farm in Arkansas.

After the army, he made it to D.C . — becoming a senator when he was just 37. 

Many predict he’s aiming higher still.

JEFFREY TOOBIN:  He doesn’t tweet silly things.  He has a distinguished military war record.  Tom Cotton is someone to watch as the Republican party moves on from Trump.

With domestic policy, Cotton is  one of the most conservative members of Congress.

SOT COTTON: Just because you can become an American doesn’t mean you are an AMerican and it doesn’t mean we have to treat you as an American!

With foreign policy, he says: be aggressive 

Cotton is one of President Trump’s trusted allies in Congress, 

COTTON ON WOLF BLITZER: 
Wolf: Do you agree with him that torture works?

Cotton: Waterboarding isn’t torture

but he has found himself at odds with the president over immigration and criminal justice reform.

COTTON on TUCKER CARLSON:

Cotton:  Someone is going to create a heinous crime if this bill passes

What does Senator Tom Cotton say now?

‘Firing Line with Margaret Hoover’ is made possible by the Margaret and Daniel Loeb Foundation. The Robertson Foundation the David Tepper charitable foundation Inc. Marlene Ricketts the Agnes Family Foundation. Spencer behavior. Additional funding is provided by. Corporate funding is provided by. Stephens Inc. And by. Pfizer. 

 

HOOVER: Senator Tom Cotton welcomed the firing line. 

 

COTTON: Thank you Margaret it’s good to be on with you. 

 

HOOVER: It’s wonderful to see you.  You are the second youngest senator in the United States Senate.

 

COTTON: That’s a that’s a pretty low bar to clear in the U.S. Senate.

 

HOOVER: An impressive one nonetheless. You’re on the Armed Services Committee and the intelligence committee and you also served in the war in Iraq. And also did a tour in Afghanistan. 

 Being a veteran and your service in the military is such a strong part of you think your world view as a senator but it seems to me that you didn’t always know that you would be in the military you were getting your law degree at Harvard. Before you decided to join. What happened.

 

COTTON: Yeah I took something of a circuitous route into the military you know most young men and women will join after high school or join after college and become an officer. I was on into law school and I plan to be a lawyer. But the 9/11 attacks happened in my last year in law school and that really changed my direction. I didn’t want to practice law so much anymore I did for a couple of years to repay all my loans. But what I really want to do is go serve on the front lines.

 

HOOVER: You’re paying off law school loans and you could have easily gone into an Army lawyer or served in a cushier job in the military and instead you went to the front lines in Iraq. it was it was there being between patrols that you really caught the attention of the conservative universe. You were in between patrols and you wrote a letter to the editor of The New York Times. Condemning them for publishing information about terrorist financing  Can you recap what you did there. 

 

COTTON: Our young soldiers on the frontlines need to have a good time sensitive accurate intelligence. And unfortunately the New York Times like a lot of folks in the media developed a bad habit over the last 20 years of disclosing that intelligence So I did fire off a letter maybe somewhat intemperate but I was pretty frustrated at the time and it did rocket around the Internet. And at first the word came down from our headquarters. That this was not a good thing. But fortunately before my battalion commander could give me a dressing down the chief of staff of the army at sent it out to all Army generals and colonels e-mail distribution list. So my battalion commander told me the next day that he was supposed to chew me out but now he is forced to punch me on the shoulder and tell me Good job. He encouraged me to let him know if I wrote any more letters to the editor. But I tell my I wouldn’t be writing any more letters.

 

HOOVER: You’ve written a book Sacred Duty: A soldiers tours of Arlington National Cemetery, which was where you worked in between your time in Iraq and Afghanistan. Which is part memoir and also very instructive to ordinary civilians to help them understand the sacred duty of men in the uniform and how they treat our fallen soldiers. You could have written a lot of books you’re a policy hawk. You’re a veteran. Why did you choose to write about the old guard?

 

COTTON: So I wanted to share the story of the young soldiers at Arlington who put in all those long hours. Who train and prepare their uniforms and go the extra mile to ensure that every funeral meets the standard of perfection. I talk about what it was like the first time I went to Dover Air Force Base to do the dignified transfer of remains of soldiers who had just been killed overseas or or what it was like to perform a very large funeral for a helicopter crew and passengers that had been shot down in Iraq. But for the most part the soldiers tour is what it’s like to be a soldier in the old guard coming to that famed regiment and performing those missions in Arlington.  Because it’s the behind the scenes look at everything that goes into what you might see at a loved one’s funeral or what many of your viewers will see in the news next weekend over Memorial Day weekend.

 

HOOVER: you’ve been known as one of the senators who works most closely with the White House. It was also reported that you’re considered as a CIA director and may yet have opportunities to serve in other capacities in this administration. How do you describe your relationship with the White House right now? 

 

COTTON:  We have a very cordial relationship. We work closely on all areas of agreement. As I would say of any president, I will support them when they’re right. I happen to think that President Trump is right more often than President Obama was and I’ll I’ll try to change their mind when I think they’re wrong. And that has happened. And if I can’t then I’ll vote and what I think is the best interest of Arkansas, and the best interest of our country. 

 

HOOVER: So now that the Mueller Report has been delivered to the public even though it’s been redacted the public has not been able to review it and you’re on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Is it easy for you on to accept the findings of the Mueller report and to accept not just the findings but the basic premise that the Russians interfered in our elections in a blatant attempt to try help President Trump to become the president?

 

 COTTON: Well there’s no doubt the Russians interfered in our election. The Mueller report has established that and the intelligence community’s assessment a few years back has established it. The Senate Intelligence Committee has established it as well. We have continued reports coming out in the future about what Russia has been up to and what they might do. But this is not a surprise to anyone who’s on the Intelligence Committee or has worked in intelligence. This is just – 

 

 HOOVER It’s also not a surprise that they had a preference for Donald Trump to you right? That the Mueller report concluded that isn’t a surprise to you on the Senate Intelligence Committee is it?

 

 COTTON  So it’s not a surprise that Russia interferes in our democratic processes.

 

 HOOVER You don’t think they had a preference for Donald Trump?

 

 COTTON I think that’s an open question yet – 

 

HOOVER: Really? 

 

COTTON: To be established.

 

HOOVER:  – Even though,  you don’t think that that was established in the Mueller Report?

 

COTTON: If you look but if you look objectively not just at what people testified to – 

 

HOOVER: No, no, no, reading the report it’s pretty clear the Russians –

 

COTTON: But if you look at what was – what objectively in 2016 the  platforms in which the two candidates ran Donald Trump favored a larger military, favored nuclear modernization. He wanted to get tougher with Russia on its periphery in places like Ukraine and in Syria.  he wanted to produce more North American oil and gas. Objectively None of those things are favorable towards the Kremlin position.  Likewise in – 

 

HOOVER: No, The Intelligence – no no no hold on. The Intelligence Committee of course concluded all of those things too. And the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded those things too.  it must be clear from your investigations it’s so clear in the unre –  in the redacted Mueller Report.That the Russians prefer Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton is that difficult for you to say?

 

COTTON:  I think there’s – I think there is evidence on both sides of that. And I think it’s a closer call. 

 

HOOVER Where is evidence in the Muller report that they wanted Hillary Clinton to be president?

 

COTTON:  Well the Mueller report is not gospel on this question in particular. There is evidence on both sides of that question about whether they favored Donald Trump or they merely wanted to harm Hillary Clinton. And in our system – 

 

HOOVER: Is there a difference?

 

COTTON: – well, so, in our system it’s hard to disentangle. 

 

HOOVER: you have two choices for president.  If you want to hurt Hillary Clinton don’t you want to help Donald Trump?

 

COTTON So that’s why it’s hard to disentangle. There is evidence that they wanted to hurt Hillary Clinton in ways that did not necessarily help Donald Trump. That evidence is still classified. 

 

HOOVER: Well that’s convenient isn’t it Tom? 

 

COTTON: I’m just saying that when you only have to two major parties, two major candidates. Usually when you help one or hurt the other you’re doing the inverse.

 

HOOVER:  So it’s hard it’s hard for me to wrap your head around that explanation it seems very very clear that the Russians wanted to help Donald Trump, in fact Muller says that 

 

COTTON:it’s hard to disentangle those two motives. They clearly wanted to hurt Hillary Clinton for the action she had taken as secretary of state. And I think as retribution for what Vladimir Putin viewed as disrespect to by her husband in the late 1990s and in 2000. But there there are indicators in addition to those objective factors about the policy difference between the two candidates. That suggests that it was as much about hurting Hillary Clinton as it was helping President 

 

HOOVER: I mean the intelligence committee also concluded that they wanted to help Donald Trump but let’s move on from that because I don’t think that has any bearing nor here nor there on the results of the election necessarily just the intentions of the Russians. As we move forward from 2016 in the Mueller Report. There has been an increasing. Noise from some of your colleagues in the Senate to investigate the investigators. And you’re on the Senate Intelligence Committee so you have access to some of the information that goes into FISA warrants, and the FISA warrant specifically that looked into Carter Page, a former Trump foreign policy adviser. Are you worried are concerned as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee that FISA warrants have become improperly politicized?

 

COTTON: I’m worried that that’s a real possibility– I I don’t want to get into the details because not all of those warrants have been released in full.   That might happen now.

 

HOOVER: I know, but you know what’s in them- 

 

COTTON:t I will say that I have concerns that at the highest levels of the FBI and the Department of Justice in the last administration that the use of domestic surveillance techniques were politicized against political opponents. If that’s the case that’s one of the biggest political scandals in the history of our country. Now I don’t want to reach that conclusion yet because both the inspector general and the attorney general have access to much more information than I do–

 

HOOVER; Than even you do

 

COTTON: of the Intelligence Committee.

 

HOOVER:One of the other areas you have seemed to be quite aligned with the president is on immigration, some say that you even done the work of translating Trumpism into legislation. You have recently reintroduced the RAISE act. Which does a few things that prioritizes high skilled immigrants it lowers future legal immigration levels it gets rid of the visa lottery it reforms family based admissions. What, Senator, is the governing philosophy behind your immigration reform legislation.

 

COTTON: American jobs for American workers First. we have clear needs in our economy in the higher skilled parts of the economy for say engineers or doctors or computer scientists. My proposal would significantly shift the way we allocate green cards towards those high skilled categories. It would reduce reliance on things as you say like the visa lottery that just gives visas away at random or extended family reunification. We’d still protect the nuclear family spouses and unmarried minor children if you look at the last 30 years Where people have been struggling the most are blue collar workers. who work all day long on their feet and with their hands. And we’re starting to see wage increases for blue collar workers for the first time in a very long time. My immigration proposal would make sure that we’re continuing to see more jobs and higher wages for blue collar Americans.

 

HOOVER: Jared Kushner senior White House adviser the president’s son in law is working on his own immigration plan that increases border security while also rebalancing immigration. A lot like you sayRebalance of higher skilled workers while keeping also low skilled workers coming legally. To the extent that they’re necessary.I sense that you are not in favor of the low skilled worker.

 

COTTON: I’m skeptical that they really are necessary. It’s better that we focus on those Americans who have been on the margins of the workforce than we provide those jobs to foreigners who want to come in and just work temporarily.  And a lot of these jobs are jobs that Americans would do. I mean you know the the H2B visa program for instance brings a lot of kids in from Eastern Europe to work at resorts in the Rocky Mountains or you know on

 

HOOVER: There’s a president who does that too.

 

COTTON: But it would be I bet you I bet a poor kid from Izard County Arkansas or Jefferson County Arkansas would be thrilled to go to Aspen this summer and be a lifeguard in a fancy resort. 

 

HOOVER: I mean there–

 

COTTON: Or operate a ski lift there this winter.

 

HOOVER: There’s an economist who I = follow, George Borjas, from Harvard who is an immigration expert. He’s an economist. He’s also a restrictionist. And his view is that low skilled immigration doesn’t hurt the economy over the long term. So it’s hard to square some of the data restrictionist immigration positions with a temporary worker visa program but does it mean Senator that you would be opposed to the proposal.

 

COTTON: I’ve I’ve met with Jared Kushner about his proposal he’s been meeting with a lot of Republican senators. I’ll just say that that right now we’ve had very productive conversations. And I hope that we end up in a place where we have a very good proposal that gets us the kind of high skilled workers we need while protecting American jobs and addressing the urgent crisis we face in the border. I think we’re moving in that direction.

 

HOOVER: You know some people think that Tom Cotton’s views generally will end up epitomizing Trumpism post- Trump. One of the places where you haven’t been in lockstep with him as on criminal justice reform. Which was surprisingly and I think to the surprise of many in Washington probably one of the most important sweeping bipartisan pieces of legislation that’s come through this administration save the Russia Sanctions. Chuck Grassley and Cory Booker sort of stood together and shook hands and hug over the achievement of this bill, and you were one of 12 senators who opposed it.

 

COTTON: I will articulate why Eighty eight senators were wrong about that bill. So this effort started primarily as a prison reform effort which I strongly support. So providing things like drug rehabilitation and treatment, faith based programs and prison job skills  I strongly supported that. Also supported measures to make prisons safer. You know neither prisoners nor prison guards should be thrown into what is in some cases essentially be a jungle. But if they moved in the direction of sentencing leniency especially for drug dealers and drug traffickers I couldn’t support it. And unfortunately once the bill got to the Senate it moved in that direction and it started eliminating the three strikes laws or reducing mandatory minimums it would allow early release for all kinds of pretty serious criminals. I don’t think that’s the right way to go when we Face a drug epidemic

 

HOOVER: well, to be fair, what it did is it created a system in order to incentivize some convicts to– through good behavior and through new rehabilitation programs to be eligible for early release. And that you have a problem with. 

 

COTTON: If you’re getting a release from prison because you’re showing up at a woodworking shop or you’re going to a counselling therapy therapy session because you’re going to get up to a 30 year sentence off you’re much less likely to actually benefit from those programs you’re just doing what you’re told to manipulate the system to get out of prison early.

 

 

HOOVER: Texas and Georgia are states that have reduced their prison populations and reduced crime simultaneously. the opponents of your position argue that the proof is in the pudding.

 

COTTON: it’s hard to compare a lot of those state experiences to the federal level in part because of the nature of federal offenses and federal prisons. And if you’re in federal prison you’re a pretty bad guy. Like you don’t get in the federal prison just for handing out a dime bag of marijuana or for jaywalking. Only the hardest of the hardcore felons go to federal prison. 

 

HOOVER: Many of the criminal justice reform folks argue that we have an over incarceration problem but you argue the opposite. Let’s take a look.

 

COTTON SOT: Take a look at the facts. First the claim that too many criminals are being jailed that there is over incarceration ignores an unfortunate fact – for the vast majority of crimes a perpetrator is never identified or arrested let alone prosecuted convicted and jailed. Law enforcement is able to arrest or identify a likely perpetrator for only 19 percent of property crimes and 47 percent of violent crimes. If anything we have an under incarceration problem.

 

HOOVER: Do you still believe that. 

 

COTTON: Just a simple fact. if you’re one to one of the half of violent crime victims who never get justice. I bet you probably think we have an under incarceration problem. 

 

HOOVER: Well hold on. Part of the criminal justice reform the reason it’s caught fire is that. You know racial disparities especially in sentencing tend to. Be quite draconian. And when you look at the NAACP it said that African-Americans are incarcerated at five times the rate of white people. How do you think about addressing these kinds of inequalities?

 

COTTON: Alot of those now go back to African-American members of Congress in the 1980s who wanted to adopt laws because they saw what crime and drugs were doing to their communities.

 

HOOVER: Does that mean it doesn’t matter and we shouldn’t try to correct it?

 

COTTON: No, if there’s obvious evidence of it. But I don’t think the evidence is so compelling of it.

 

HOOVER: So then where should. Criminal justice efforts be focused or should they not at all. 

 

COTTON: not letting– not letting violent felons out of prison.

 

HOOVER:  Truman Capote I was on this program in 1967. He had written, He was the author of In Cold Blood. And I’d like you to take a look at what he says about violent criminals 

 

BUCKLEY CLIP: in my theory of things of talking and then interviewing these people I think a homicidal mind is incurable. I see no I mean it’s just in what I’m talking about is what the person then does with themselves. For instance there’s this boy called Michael John Bell who is in prison in Colorado State Prison who’s had six seven dates of execution. Well he’s really the most extraordinary young man and he’s become quite an accomplished painter. And he reads,  But Michael John Bell would tell you himself. I think you know that he is very dangerous. He’s told you. But in effect yes.

 

HOOVER: do you believe that the homicidal mind is incurable.

 

COTTON: So first I say you know Truman Capote was famous for his in-depth research of the criminal mind and true crime. I’ll say that I enjoyed my research with soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery for sacred duty a lot more than he probably enjoyed his.  But he’s right that there are just some incurable minds and all you can do is incapacitate them. 

 

HOOVER: Right

 

COTTON: not everyone who commits a crime obviously is irredeemable. I mean that’s not consistent with our faith. But it’s not consistent with good public policy either.

 

HOOVER: do– are sentencing laws working

 

COTTON: I mean I think the sentencing laws that we just change or are not going to work as well because I think there is going to be crime resulting from some of these early releases is just a matter of time is almost a mathematical certainty. 

 

HOOVER: Let’s go to foreign policy. This is your sweet spot. One of the first things you did once you were elected to be a U.S. senator was organize a letter that 46 of your. Colleagues signed and it was a letter to the ayatollahs. Warning them in the midst of Barack Obama’s negotiations on the Iran deal that whatever deal they entered into with Barack Obama because it wasn’t a treaty and didn’t have the strength of force of legislation in the United States Congress. Could be undone by whoever Barack Obama’s successor was. That was exactly what happened. Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran deal and. I wonder. How would you grade Donald Trump on his interactions with Iran today.

 

COTTON: So I’ll just say that you know that that letter we posted to the ayatollahs  generated a lot of controversy I don’t really see why it’s controversial. I mean it’s simple a simple statement of constitutional fact. So all those Senators and I want to make sure that ayatollahs us understood exactly what our system of government requires

 

HOOVER: Do you think they maybe did understand that, but were just happy to make the deal with the United States or do you think you really educated them.

 

COTTON: I think we brought it to their attention given the controversy it generated. If you want to have a lasting binding agreement with the United States you don’t make simple executive agreements. You require a treaty that gets a vote in the United States Senate. And as we said in that letter it could be up ended by a single stroke of a pen by any future president. And that turned out to be the case as the president rightly did about a year ago. And right now I think things are moving in the right direction for Iran. Look we just announced that we’re going to go to zero oil exports for Iran. That is going to take their economy from where it is today, Recession levels, to I suspect to Depression levels in the near future.

 

HOOVER: So Your hope is that by instituting economic sanctions sanctions with Iran even though the United States has pulled out of the Iran deal that continued pressure from the United States will prevent Iran from continuing to try to develop a nuclear– fissile material or nuclear warhead 

 

COTTON: well that’s part of it. But it’s not just the nuclear deal. I mean part of the fundamental problem of the nuclear deal is that it didn’t address all of Iran’s other outlaw behavior like supporting terrorism against the United States and our allies or arming rebel organizations throughout the Middle East or it’s abuse of its own people. And as they face more economic pressures they face more military and political pressure throughout the Middle East. That puts them in the defensive position as opposed to being on the offense which is what they were for most of the Obama administration. 

 

HOOVER: How does positioning the strike group in carrier  [09:44:38] In waters outside of Iran help that position.

 

COTTON:  we’re sending the clear message to Iran that we will brook no kind of attack either by their own forces or by proxy forces against the United States or against our interest and allies in the region 

 

HOOVER: could we win a war with Iran.

 

COTTON: Yes. 

 

HOOVER:That didn’t take you a second. 

 

COTTON: Two strikes the first strike and the last strike. 

 

HOOVER: What are the conditions or the circumstances that would justify going to war with Iran.

 

COTTON:  Well if Iran struck out militarily against the United States or against our allies in the region then I would certainly expect a devastating response against Iran. 

 

HOOVER: as somebody who fought in two fronts in the Middle East, both in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Do you think it would be a good idea to go to war with Iran.

 

COTTON:] No I don’t advocate military action against Iran. I’m simply delivering the message that if Iran were to attack the United States it would be a grave miscalculation on their part and there would be a furious response. Now we don’t want to Govern Iran. We don’t want to rule 80 million Iranians. We want 80 million Iranians to be able to govern themselves and do so in peace and security with their neighbors and to taking account our interests in the Middle East.

 

HOOVER: Where are you on regime change. 

 

COTTON: What I want is to have an outlaw regime change its behavior to rejoin the civilized world and stop supporting terrorism and trying to overthrow the governments of so many of its neighbors. ultimately if you have people like Ayatollah Khamenei. in charge in Iran it’s hard to see how the United States and allies like Israel can live in peace in the Middle East. Ultimately it’s up to the  Iranian people and their leaders to decide how they’re going to govern their country. But with men like those in charge of Iran I think we’re gonna see what we’re seeing for the last 40 years which is a revolutionary theological movement that’s hijacked the powers of a nation state. 

 

HOOVER: I wonder if. That means on any level to you that War Is inevitable.

 

COTTON: War is never inevitable. War is always the product of human choices. And again we don’t want to go to war with Iran and its people. We want the Middle East to be stable and secure. We want to protect our citizens, our troops, and our interests in that region. It’s in large part up to Iran based on how they behave whether there ever is a military conflict with the United States.

 

HOOVER: As you think through the strategic threats in the long term and military threats this country China, Russia, Who keeps you up at night. 

 

COTTON: No one keeps me up at night.

 

HOOVER:  What national security threat United States. 

 

COTTON: The United States keeps other people up at night. 

 

HOOVER: OK. Are you more concerned about China or Russia?

 

COTTON: Oh China. No doubt. China is a large nation. It’s the second largest in the world or soon will be when India overtakes it. It’s got the second largest economy. It has a rapidly modernizing and growing military. It has a clear and demonstrated intent. If you read Xi Jinping’s words to displace the United States as the world’s largest economy and the world’s superpower. So there’s no doubt that China is the main threat we face going forward in a nation state to nation state environment. Now that doesn’t mean that Russia is not a threat. We saw what they can do through their intelligence capabilities which are top notch anywhere in the world in 2016 just like they did throughout the Cold War they still have the only nuclear arsenal in the world that is capable of destroying our way of life. 

 

HOOVER: Many people suspect that Tom Cotton will have a career beyond being a U.S. senator from Arkansas 

 

COTTON: like being an author 

 

HOOVER: What do you say to those who suggest you have presidential ambitions.

 

COTTON: I say that I’m running for re-election in Arkansas in 2020 and I’m hoping to tell the story of the old guard in sacred duty and I’ll let the chips fall where they may. Look one thing I’ve learned is it’s great to have a plan. But it’s even better write your plan and pencil because you never know what kind of obstacles you’ll have to overcome. What kind of opportunities you may be able to seize. in the meantime you should focus on doing the best job you can in the job you have now and trying to make the biggest difference you can for the most number of people in your life.

 

HOOVER: Well with that Tom Cotton thank you for coming to firing line. 

 

COTTON: Thanks Margaret. 

 

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