In part, Senator Cotton said:

“China really needs to engage here on Iran, a terrorist state trying to close the Strait of Hormuz, because China gets the lion share of the oil coming out of the Middle East. Now that we've imposed a blockade on the Strait on all ships, if all ships don't get out, China is really the one that's going to face the brunt of the pain.

The president's point is very simple to Iran, either all ships come out or no ships come out and the United States military can easily impose those conditions on the Strait. Remember, that's where Iran gets the vast majority of its revenue and how it supports its military and its terrorist proxies throughout the region. So, this puts them now not just in a military vice, but in an economic vice as well.”

Brian Kilmeade: Here we go again. Senate Intel Committee Chair Tom Cotton joins us now. Senator, you saw that over the weekend that China evidently is going to give a missile defense system possibly and shoulder man pads over to China, the President took action. It seems directly that that's not going to fly.

Senator Cotton: Yeah, Brian, I can't confirm or deny that specific report as the president didn't either, but obviously we would not tolerate such behavior from the Chinese and I'm confident, as the president said, they understand that and that senior officials have made that clear to Chinese counterparts. China really needs to engage here on Iran, a terrorist state trying to close the Strait of Hormuz, because China gets the lion share of the oil coming out of the Middle East. Now that we've imposed a blockade on the Strait on all ships, if all ships don't get out, China is really the one that's going to face the brunt of the pain.

Brian Kilmeade: And that means China sends a tanker in, they're going to be told, "Turn around. You can wait here, but you're not going forward." This is a stare down.

Senator Cotton: Yeah, it's really akin to what we've done with Venezuela for several months. The president's point is very simple to Iran, either all ships come out or no ships come out and the United States military can easily impose those conditions on the Strait. Remember, that's where Iran gets the vast majority of its revenue and how it supports its military and its terrorist proxies throughout the region. So, this puts them now not just in a military vice, but in an economic vice as well.

Brian Kilmeade: With the progress we're making, do you think on some level the administration regrets the ceasefire?

Senator Cotton: No, I don't think so. I think the president has bent over backwards now going back nine years trying to allow Iran take very simple very easy steps of turning over their nuclear materials, shutting down their nuclear infrastructure, stopping their support for terrorism. These are not onerous demands. These are something we expect from any civilized nation. And the president's going to continue to try to find a way to meet those demands. But he's going to keep the military and economic pressure on Iran until they do.

Brian Kilmeade: They got about a hundred launchers left and they're hiding them and about a thousand ballistic missiles left. With this mosaic defense that they have, evidently, when Saddam Hussein was taken out in 26 days, they said he had so much power you can decapitate a regime. They didn't want to be decapitated. Take out the Ayatollah. They have 32 provinces running their own war. Is it possible they don't know how bad things are because they have their own 32 separate supply chains. They have very little communication.

Senator Cotton: They know how bad things are and they know the risk. It is true that is hard for Iran's leaders to communicate. As Pete Hegseth said a couple weeks ago, not only can they not command and control, they can barely communicate. They're afraid that if they turn on their phones that they may get a bomb dropped on their head. That said, every military line of effort in this campaign is either on time or ahead of schedule, their missiles, missile launchers, the drones, the Navy, the Air Force. That's the consistent message I hear from my conversations with senior administration officials and from the briefings and the hearings that we get in Congress.

Brian Kilmeade: So, the Wall Street Journal today has a report that we're looking to take some limited action during the ceasefire. If so, what kind of action do you think that we need to take that wouldn't last another week?

Senator Cotton: Well, if Iran follows through on its threat this morning to target ports in the region for our friends in places like Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, obviously we're not just going to sit back idly and let that happen. We're going to re-engage in part to help protect our troops and our ships in the region, help protect our friends as well.

Brian Kilmeade: Stockpiles. Are you concerned about our stockpiles from interceptors to munitions? We heard about shortages during the Biden years during supplying Ukraine.

Senator Cotton: I've been concerned about this for years and I've worked on it for a long time in Congress. It's getting better under the Trump administration. Pete Hegseth and the deputy secretary Steve Fineberg are working very hard to accelerate production of these interceptors and missiles in places like where they're made like Camden, Arkansas. So, it's improving but we still have a lot to do to gain. I'm not concerned about it what it means for the conduct of this operation. I'm more concerned about what it means for the future. That's why we have to do more faster.

Brian Kilmeade: Would you like to see another round of talks that lasted 21 hours and didn't yield any results?

Senator Cotton: Until Iran shows that it's serious about these very simple demands like turning over its nuclear materials, no longer supporting terrorism, no longer trying to terrorize the Strait of Hormuz, I don't see the talks are making much progress. When they're ready to get serious, perhaps when they felt more economic pain, more military pain, maybe they want to re-engage at that point.

Brian Kilmeade: All right, Senator, thanks so much. Good to see you in New York. Good to see you face to face.

Senator Cotton: Thanks Brian, good to be here.