Republican Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) has fired back and shut down a sleazy CBS reporter who tried to blame conservatives for the recent attack on Paul Pelosi in San Francisco.
During the interview on CBS Mornings, meant to promote his new book, Cotton calmly beat down the repeated aspersions from co-host Tony Dokoupil about this incident.
Cotton shut Dokoupil down by citing the Left’s double standard on crime and political violence.
Dokoupil began by wondering what Cotton’s “reaction” to the alleged crime was seeing as how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is “a fellow elected official.”
Cotton immediately sniffed out where Dokoupil was going, stating “it’s a terrible crime against Paul Pelosi.”
The senator added that not only did he “wish him the very best and a full recovery,” but called for “the book” to be “throw[n]…at the assailant.”
Adding the suspect is reportedly in the U.S. illegally, Cotton said “throw[ing] the book at” violent criminals should always be the case and regardless of whether it’s Mr. Pelosi, “the person who tried to assassinate Brett Kavanaugh” or “any common criminal who attacks someone” regardless of their status.
Nevertheless, Dokoupil continued to try to pin Cotton down, insisting crimes against ordinary citizens (i.e. those without means to recover after such an attack) needed to be “separate[d] out” from “what seems to be politically-motivated crime.”
He then asked the Arkansas junior senator “whether the temperature in the country is just too high, the information is just too much, and that we’re going to see more, not less political violence going forward.”
Cotton wasn’t having it and implicitly took aim at those suggesting policies and views espoused by the early 2010s Tea Party caused it.
He argues that “deranged lunatics” have gone after people in both parties and thus he didn’t “think John Boehner 12 years ago pointing out that Nancy Pelosi passed ObamaCare or Kevin McCarthy now pointing out that she passed trillions of dollars in spending that caused…inflation led to this…apparent nudist activist breaking into their home.”
“The simplest way to stop crimes like this is to get tough on crime,” Cotton added.
“It’s not to try to stop campaigning in the middle of a campaign seven days before an election on legitimate issues of public concern.”
Ignoring the fact, both earlier in the show and on Monday, there was a series of attacks on Republicans for articulating their viewpoints, Dokoupil insisted “[p]eople should continue to campaign on issues of public concern” and there was “no debate there.”
Dokoupil tried a third and final time to see if he’d blame Republicans.
Cotton, of course, didn’t bite and called out Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for his violent rhetoric about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
He argued that, if the same rules applied as have been suggested here, then he needs to be held to account
WATCH:
The second half of the interview touched on the book and Cotton’s possible 2024 presidential campaign.
In the book Only the Strong: Reversing the Left’s Plot to Sabotage American Power, Cotton explained it was necessary to go back through history to progressives such as Woodrow Wilson because, “[a]t best, these progressives are ambivalent about America and they’re openly hostile to American power.”
And on 2024, Cotton argued that just as there are 50-meter and 300-meter targets in rifle shooting, the former represents the midterms in seven days and should be of immediate concern.
The one further down the road can wait, he added.
