In part, Senator Cotton said:

 “These phones are not just or primarily a danger for, say, correctional officers inside of prisons, but especially for law-abiding Arkansans outside of prisons. When President Trump or Governor Sanders cracked down on crime and they put criminals in prison where they belong, they shouldn't be able to continue to threaten law-abiding Arkansans. But they can use these phones, as Chairman Carr said, to call in hits, to make threats, to undertake blackmail. We have to stop contraband cell phones from getting into our prisons, or even more effectively, simply disable them so they're useless when they do. I've worked on this issue for years. I'm glad President Trump and Chairman Carr are now willing to take regulatory steps to make sure that we're protecting law-abiding citizens from contraband cell phones in our prisons and jails across the country.”

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

Bill Hemmer: Good Morning to both of you. I had no idea the extent of this, put it on screen right now. 28,840, 25,840 contraband cell phone recoveries. Brendan Carr, what's the effect of that?

Chairman Carr: Yeah, President Trump is making America safe again. And he's delivering results in ways that we didn't see in the last four years, this is one example. As you noted, tens of thousands of contraband cell phones have been pouring into prisons all across the country. They're being used to orchestrate kidnappings, to order hits, to run drug operations and criminal enterprises. The senator and I had a chance to visit a supermax prison in Arkansas, and they said that contraband cell phones are the root of so much that's gone wrong. And increasingly during the Biden years, state and local law enforcement went to the administration and asked for help, and they didn't get it. Now, with President Trump, that's changing, and we're going to allow state and local law enforcement to take action. And this builds on the great leadership that Senator Cotton has in leading the charge on this in the Senate.

Bill Hemmer: Ok, let me come back to that. Senator, to you now, my colleague Molly this morning, she pulled up the TikTok feed about prison jail videos. There's hundreds. There might be thousands. And now, granted, a lot of the stuff was innocent. But can they coordinate crime by using these phones?

Senator Cotton: Yeah, Bill, absolutely. These phones are not just or primarily a danger for, say, correctional officers inside of prisons, but especially for law-abiding Arkansans outside of prisons. When President Trump or Governor Sanders cracked down on crime and they put criminals in prison where they belong, they shouldn't be able to continue to threaten law-abiding Arkansans. But they can use these phones, as Chairman Carr said, to call in hits, to make threats, to undertake blackmail. We have to stop contraband cell phones from getting into our prisons, or even more effectively, simply disable them so they're useless when they do. I've worked on this issue for years. I'm glad President Trump and Chairman Carr are now willing to take regulatory steps to make sure that we're protecting law-abiding citizens from contraband cell phones in our prisons and jails across the country.

Bill Hemmer:  Senator, why has it taken so long?

Senator Cotton:  Well, you have some Democrats in Congress who seem to be a little bit more concerned about conditions that harden prisoners, sometimes depraved murderers have, and that you don't want to do anything that might infringe upon their rights or possibly have spillover effects in neighborhoods. Well, as we've seen, just last week when Chairman Carr and I visited the Varner maximum security prison, most of these prisons are kind of in the middle of nowhere by design. And technology now is very specific, very targeted --

Bill Hemmer: Yes.

Senator Cotton:  -- It is easy to shut down cell phones of prisoners without having any spillover effects. I think we need to be more concerned about law-abiding citizens than we are about prisoners.

Bill Hemmer:  Yeah, Chairman Carr, you say you're going to vote later this month. Who would vote no on this?

Chairman Carr:  Yeah, I think we'll get it across the finish line. I expect hopefully bipartisan support for it. And then we'll move quickly because again, we've seen too many instances of, you know, prisoners calling in, having kidnappings of the prosecutor that put them behind jails. Again, you have to take the worst of the worst. You put them behind bars. People don't expect them to continue to be able to hurt them from there. And thankfully, during this Trump administration, we're taking actions where others haven't.

Bill Hemmer:  OK, we'll see how the vote comes out. Brendan Carr, thank you for your time. Tom Cotton, thank you, gentlemen, for coming on today.