In case you missed it — Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) joined Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday” to discuss Senate negotiations on supplemental funding legislation, the debate over the southern border, and Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on his investigation into President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents.
In part, Senator Cotton said:
On supplemental funding legislation: “For two years, the president has said he'll stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. For three years, though, he's allowed an invasion to occur at our border, almost 10 million migrants have crossed into our country. So last fall, we wanted to take the opportunity to force the president's hand, an uncooperative president, to force him to close down the border, especially to stop the abuses of asylum and parole practices, which is really driving this crisis. So, we engaged in a few months of negotiations to see what the Democratic priorities are. And we learned that the priorities are open borders, not securing our border, putting Ukraine and other country's borders ahead of our own border. And that's why that legislation went down. It wasn't because we wanted to pass any bill just for the sake of passing a bill. It's we want to solve the problem. And the Democrats simply were unwilling to solve the problem because they are ideologically invested in open borders.”
On Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report: “Well, Shannon, look, the report makes it clear that President Biden intentionally took classified material, and he willfully disclosed it to his own ghostwriter. That's clear. That's exactly what Donald Trump has been charged with. The special counsel had to explain why he wasn't going to charge President Biden with a crime since President Trump is facing the exact same crime and the explanation is, President Biden's memory is failing, not just now, but seven years ago when he couldn't remember when he talked to his ghostwriter about whether its material was classified.”
Senator Cotton’s full interview may be found here and below.
Shannon Bream: President Biden pointing the finger at Capitol Hill over new U.S. funding to Ukraine being held up for months as lawmakers struggle to find a compromise. We're gonna be joined now from lawmakers from both sides of the aisle: Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton, and Washington State Democrat Congressman Adam Smith. We begin with you, Senator Cotton. Welcome back.
Senator Cotton: Thank you.
Shannon Bream: So, you're working this weekend. There'll be some votes on moving this big supplemental. So, here's the deal. The president wanted all this money for Ukraine, Israel, other priorities. But that deal that was going to attach the border funding to that, or some border policy changes, that's gone away. So, he ends up with the money he wanted in the first place, no border deal, and he gets to point to you guys as killing the border deal. So how did you get here?
Senator Cotton: Well, I think it's important to look at how we got here, Shannon. For two years, the president has said he'll stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. For three years, though, he's allowed an invasion to occur at our border, almost 10 million migrants have crossed into our country. So last fall, we wanted to take the opportunity to force the president's hand, an uncooperative president, to force him to close down the border, especially to stop the abuses of asylum and parole practices, which is really driving this crisis. So, we engaged in a few months of negotiations to see what the Democratic priorities are. And we learned that the priorities are open borders, not securing our border, putting Ukraine and other country's borders ahead of our own border. And that's why that legislation went down. It wasn't because we wanted to pass any bill just for the sake of passing a bill. It's we want to solve the problem. And the Democrats simply were unwilling to solve the problem because they are ideologically invested in open borders.
Shannon Bream: Is that why you'll be a no on the overall foreign aid package?
Senator Cotton: Well, yeah, we did spend four months promising the American people that we would secure our own border before we focused on other country's borders. That's one thing. But also, the legislation that's left, I have serious concerns about the $19 billion of non-defense aid in there. A lot of that money in there is needful, and I think James Lankford did as good a job as he could negotiating with a bunch of stubborn Democrats. Susan Collins did a great job in trying to get more defense aid and less non-defense aid. But at the end of the day, you still have $19 billion, that's almost 20% of the total, going to things like budget support for Ukraine's government. Almost half of that $90 billion could go to Gaza, which really means going to Hamas, because Hamas doesn't commandeer aid, it doesn't steal aid, it accepts aid. It's the governing authority in Gaza, and the guardrails in the bill simply aren't adequate. And that $19 billion couldn't be spent at all, when we have trillion-dollar deficits, or it can be spent on things like three new Virginia class submarines, or 170 stealth fighter, or more than 5000 precision strike missiles. So that's another reason why I'm gonna be a no on this bill.
Shannon Bream: Okay, we’ll watch this afternoon action in the Senate there. So, President Biden not only gets to blame you guys about the border, but he gets to blame President Trump, who he says tanked this whole deal. Think he wants to keep it alive as a campaign issue and that basically, he's running the GOP at this point. Politico says this quote, "it's devastating. Trump sees his unmatched control over GOP," taking a quote there from an analyst and saying this he's got a "stronghold," quoting Amy Tarkanian, former chair of the Nevada Republican Party: "I don't know how to explain it. It's completely mind boggling to me the type of brainwashing that has been done." Critics say there's no check on him within the GOP. You're all afraid of him. You've endorsed him. What do you make of this argument that he's essentially taken away your autonomy as a senator?
Senator Cotton: Not at all, Shannon. What President Trump saw about this bill is what most Arkansans saw about it, what all but four Republican senators saw, which is that it does not solve the problem. Yes, it had some positive reforms. But in the end by institutionalizing or codifying a lot of President Biden's abuses over the last three years, it would allow this flow of migrants to continue. What I want to do what most Republican senators want to do, what President Trump wants to do is stop the border crisis. And now we can see with Joe Biden ideologically invest in open borders, the way to stop that crisis is to elect President Trump this fall. He did it once he can do it again.
Shannon Bream: Well, speaking of elections this fall, the White House not happy about this Hur report that came out talking about the president, saying he's got a hazy recollection, but no criminal charges for him, and the president's supporters are saying that's being missed in this whole thing. Here's some of the response to the report.
White House Counsel Office Spokesman Ian Sams (clip): I dispute that the characterizations about his memory that were in the report are accurate because they're not.
Vice President Kamala Harris (clip): I believe, is, as a former prosecutor. The comments that were made by that prosecutor: gratuitous, inaccurate, and inappropriate.
Shannon Bream: And Paul Krugman, writing about this over the New York Times, says it's a hit job by the special counsel, adding it was full of snide, unwarranted, obviously politically motivated slurs. He called it disgusting. Critics say you didn't need almost 400 pages to explain why you're not prosecuting the president.
Senator Cotton: Well, Shannon, look, the report makes it clear that President Biden intentionally took classified material, and he willfully disclosed it to his own ghostwriter. That's clear. That's exactly what Donald Trump has been charged with. The special counsel had to explain why he wasn't going to charge President Biden with a crime since President Trump is facing the exact same crime and the explanation is, President Biden's memory is failing, not just now, but seven years ago when he couldn't remember when he talked to his ghostwriter about whether its material was classified. And look, there's no new bombshells about President Biden in this. The American people have seen for years that he is a man with a failing memory. What this report indicates, though, is that you have a blatant double standard. If Joe Biden is not going to face criminal charges, then Donald Trump shouldn't be facing criminal charges either. The reason he is not just in that documents case, but the other case, is that Joe Biden is a failed president, and the Democratic party knows the only way to stop Donald Trump from being elected president this fall is to try to convict him and imprison him. That's what you would expect to see in a place like Pakistan or Brazil, not in the United States of America.
Shannon Bream: We are tracking every single one of those trials is we know you are senator, thank you for your time.
Senator Cotton: Thank you.
Shannon Bream: Good to see you.