In part, Senator Cotton said:

“Well, that's you know, they got all chesty over the weekend about this which I find very peculiar because Chuck Schumer and senior Democrats said they weren't going to shut down the government this time and notably, Patty Murray, the senior Democrat who wrote these bills, said just a few days ago that a shutdown would not restrain ICE in any way. In fact, it would probably give the president more discretion.

So, she acknowledges, as other Democrats have acknowledged, that voting against this bill will do literally nothing to stop ICE from undertaking these lawful operations that the Democrats for some reason oppose, but apparently the Democrats just desire to virtue signal to their own radical base are willing to shut down the government knowing it will have no effect on what's happening in Minneapolis or ICE operations elsewhere. 

But it will, for instance, have a big impact on FEMA or TSA after one of the biggest winter storms in years. Also, our military and all of our public health agencies and the Department of Transportation and every other government agency that they'd be willing to hold up funding for because they want a purely symbolic action that even senior Democrats admit would have no impact on what you see in Minneapolis.”

Senator Cotton’s full interview may be found here and below.

Brian Kilmeade: Senator Tom Cotton, welcome back.

Senator Cotton: Hey, Brian. It's good to be back on with you.

Brian Kilmeade: Man, so much to talk about, foreign policy is right up your alley, but I do want to talk about Minneapolis. For me, I'm relieved Tom Homan's going. I appreciate the mission more than anything else, but it's getting muddled with the politics and now we got two deaths. Do you agree?

Senator Cotton: Yeah, Brian, I have high confidence in Tom Homan as well. He's career law enforcement. He’s been working on immigration matters his entire life. If I recall, President Obama's administration gave him an award even and I think it'll be good to have that kind of senior level you know advisor on site. The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti are tragedies. They are avoidable tragedies, however, and the way they could have been avoided and the way future ones can be avoided is for state and local officials in Minnesota to start cooperating with federal authorities as opposed to obstructing them and especially encouraging civilians to interfere with lawful activities of federal law enforcement. There cannot be a mob veto on our ICE officers. It's not just what you see in the street that led to this shooting. Like last night, some of these agitators took over a hotel where ICE officers were staying. There's been reports that ICE officers have been surrounded and harassed when they're simply trying to eat a dinner off duty at a restaurant.  I would point out too Brian, that we've had several states with many more arrests of criminal illegal aliens in Minnesota, states like Georgia and Florida and Texas, and we've seen none of these things. Why? Because state and local officials are cooperating with federal law enforcement. That's what they should do in Minnesota.

Brian Kilmeade: I hear you. And what about an acknowledgement that these aren't all peaceful protests? At the very least, the mayor and governor. What about saying, "Look, I ask people to go out there with their cameras, but I don't want them jumping in law enforcement's way. I don't think it's good to harass and scream in the face of ICE agents and border patrol agents or FBI or whoever happens to be on the ground." None of that. But instead, you get sanctimonious clowns like the mayor there. He's the worst, remember him with George Floyd? We first got a look at his incompetence there where he gave up a police station. 

Clip: That is not what we are talking about right now. What they are also saying is that this is simply political retaliation. They are saying this is political retribution and it's focused here on a blue city in a blue state. That's not how America works. Other countries function that way. We don't.

Brian Kilmeade: So, this clown thinks it's okay to harbor illegal immigrant criminals, not give access to prisons, have a sanctuary city, and try to stop ICE from doing their job. And he's lecturing us on how a country should work.

Senator Cotton: Yeah, exactly, Brian, again, if that mayor and Tim Waltz would simply cooperate with federal law enforcement, most importantly, if they would allow local police to do the job that they always do, which is assist federal law enforcement and apprehending federal fugitives or targets, then you see none of this. As you say, they certainly should not be encouraging civilians to go out and interfere with law enforcement operations. It's one thing to stand on the sidewalk, it’s kind of obnoxious to bang pans and blow whistles when the people you're trying to alert and help are child rapists and pedophiles and career criminals, but it's especially unwise to use your car to block law enforcement vehicles or to get in between law enforcement officers and a target that they're trying to apprehend that’s usually not going to end well.

Brian Kilmeade: Senator Cotton, do you think that they they're going to follow through with their threat, Democrats, to not fund the DHS and have another government shutdown?

Senator Cotton: Well, that's you know, they got all chesty over the weekend about this which I find very peculiar because Chuck Schumer and senior Democrats said they weren't going to shut down the government this time and notably, Patty Murray, the senior Democrat who wrote these bills, said just a few days ago that a shutdown would not restrain ICE in any way. In fact, it would probably give the president more discretion. So, she acknowledges, as other Democrats have acknowledged, that voting against this bill will do literally nothing to stop ICE from undertaking these lawful operations that the Democrats for some reason oppose, but apparently the Democrats just desire to virtue signal to their own radical base are willing to shut down the government knowing it will have no effect on what's happening in Minneapolis or ICE operations elsewhere. But it will, for instance, have a big impact on FEMA or TSA after one of the biggest winter storms in years. Also, our military and all of our public health agencies and the Department of Transportation and every other government agency that they'd be willing to hold up funding for because they want a purely symbolic action that even senior Democrats admit would have no impact on what you see in Minneapolis.

Brian Kilmeade: All right, so you wrote the bestselling book about China, the seven things you can't say about China, and now we have some massive shakeups. China's top general, second only to President Xi is gone. They also have the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission gone. They have another member of the commission, General Lee Zu Lee, who leads the military's joint staff he is gone and General Zang's downfall. Few of any Chinese officials placed publicly under investigation are later declared innocent, as you know, and he's being investigated for sharing nuclear secrets with us. How significant is this upheaval, and what do you think it signifies?

Senator Cotton: Well, Brian, it's always hard to view inside operations and maneuvering of a pilot bureau. It was hard for us with Soviet Russia, it's hard for us with communist China. I think it's fair to say at a minimum it shows just how tight Xi Jinping’s grip is on power that he was willing to remove the senior military general someone who had been viewed as aligned with him and puts even more power in his own hands. This is just again an example of how Xi over the last 14 years has consolidated power, there's a reason why they call him the strongest Chinese dictator since now. So, I think that's about as far as we can go for sure. We may know more in the coming days and weeks, but there's no question that Xi calls the shots in China.

Brian Kilmeade: So, the thing is they haven't had a war since 1979. They got all this hardware, they have all this investment, I understand they got this nuclear program now, all the rockets and missiles, the silos, they got the battleships, the aircraft carriers, I imagine drone technology, but is there something about the generals that is so inept that it's become clear that their only way forward is to get rid of them? I mean, you can't say that our military is untested after what we've done and you personally demonstrated in the infantry of what happened all different type of warfare. China has none of that experience. What do you think they could be seeing? Or is it flatout corruption? Or are they afraid the military is getting so big they could overwhelm the chief executive or the executive branch?

Senator Cotton: Well, on the corruption point, first off, there's no question that corruption is rife throughout the People's Liberation Army, the Chinese Communist Party, just like it was in Soviet Russia. It won't surprise your leaders to know that in the so-called vanguard of the proletariat, some are more equal than others. So, there's no question that corruption is rife throughout the leadership of China. That gives, you know, someone like Xi a casual pretext at any time to remove someone that he wants. It is always possible that Xi was worried about influence or power being amassed by a rival, but again, it's hard to speculate about the interup workings of a pilot bureau from the outside. I just think the upshot of where we are now is there's no question that Xi is calling the shots and Xi is a hardcore Marxist Leninist.

Brian Kilmeade: So, Iran, we have the president's words right in the region, the revolutionary guards said you better not do anything, the Ayatollah is in a bunker underneath the capital city. We know that between now they say 30,000 were killed just killed in cold blood. Unarmed citizens during the unrest. What's the best move forward? What are our options moving forward, Senator Cotton?

Senator Cotton: We have a lot of options. You have more than we did probably two weeks ago now that we have more of this military hardware in the theater. There's also still more economic and financial options. Iran's revenues from black market oil exports have been shrinking now that we don't have to worry as much about black market oil coming from Venezuela. We could focus more in their black market oil, intercept some of these so-called ghost tankers, make it harder for them to get their oil to market, put even more pressure on them. Remember the grievances of these brave protesters in Iran are at first about the fact that their currency isn't worth the paper it's written on. That will put more pressure on the currency. At root, of course, it's the same grievance they've had for decades, which is that they're governed by incompetent and malevolent dictators. Neither one of those grievances is going away anytime soon. So, I think although some of these protests may have abided as the regime massacred its own people, I don't believe that's going to be the end of the story. I think it's probably closer to the early chapters of the story.

Brian Kilmeade: So would you worry if the Ayatollah dies dead, killed, ousted, whatever, and now they say most logically, do you agree that the revolutionary guard would take over and would that be worse?

Senator Cotton: That is certainly one possibility and I wouldn't say it'd be worse. It's hard to get worse than the current leaders of Iran in terms of their virulent anti-American ideology, but it's not going to get better if Revolutionary Guard core leaders take over. Again, it's hard to say what direction it would take in the future. Not many protests become revolutions, but most revolutions start out as protest.

Brian Kilmeade: Lastly, in Syria, it looks like we might have abandoned the Kurds again. They've been told basically to fold themselves into the Syrian army, which is not likely. They're our most loyal fighting force in the region. Is there another way? Is there something you could do to help these people who deserve better?

Senator Cotton: Well, I know that the Trump administration is working with the new government of Syria and trying to make sure there's not a massacre or slaughter. They are trying to of course consolidate their control over the territory and bring some of these Kurdish forces in. I think what you saw over the last week or two with a lot of the Arabs who are aligned who were aligned with Syrian democratic forces peeling off and joining ranks with the government. So that leaves it more of a purely Kurdish force, but of course we want to respect our long-standing friends and allies in Syria and Iraq and ensure that they are brought into some kind some kind of governing coalition that brings stability and order to Syria.

Brian Kilmeade: Yeah, I guess we'll see what happens, and we also know the last body was recovered in Israel and it means they're going to reopen they're going to move to the second phase I assume and that means going to open up the border to Rafa. Have you been updated? Are they close to getting an international force in there and having the Israelis back out?

Senator Cotton: Well, I don't think so yet, Brian, in part because Hamas has not been disarmed and President Trump was clear about this last week at Davos. Hamas has to disarm before anything else can happen, you know, and he put them on clock for two or three weeks, and frankly, Brian, an international force is not going to go in and disarm hardened terrorists of Hamas. If anyone's going to do that, it's going to be the Israeli Defense Forces. You may have an international force come in after the fact and, you know, maybe guard static sites like food distribution warehouses or critical infrastructure. But the idea that you're going to put, you know, a bunch of soldiers from a few different countries across Africa and South Asia together and they're going to go in and take weapons away from hardened terrorists Hamas, I think it's fancible.

Brian Kilmeade: But if you were able to overthrow Iran, you cut off a huge chunk of their financing and Hezbollah’s and that would go a long way, right?

Senator Cotton: Yeah.

Brian Kilmeade: Go get them. Senator Tom Cotton, thanks for everything.