Wikipedia

Tom Cotton

For the fictional character, see Tom "Rocky" Cotton.

Thomas Bryant Cotton (born May 13, 1977) is an American politician, attorney, and former Army officer serving as the junior United States senator from Arkansas since 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2015.

Tom Cotton
Cotton's official Senate photo
Chair of the Senate Republican Conference
Designate
Assuming office
January 3, 2025
LeaderJohn Thune (designate)
SucceedingJohn Barrasso
Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee
Designate
Assuming office
January 3, 2025
SucceedingMark Warner
United States Senator
from Arkansas
Incumbent
Assumed office
January 3, 2015
Serving with John Boozman
Preceded byMark Pryor
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Arkansas's 4th district
In office
January 3, 2013 – January 3, 2015
Preceded byMike Ross
Succeeded byBruce Westerman
Personal details
Born
Thomas Bryant Cotton

(1977-05-13) May 13, 1977 (age 47)
Dardanelle, Arkansas, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
Spouse
Anna Peckham
​
(m. 2014)​
Children2
EducationHarvard University (BA, JD)
WebsiteSenate website
Military service
Branch/serviceUnited States Army
Years of service
RankCaptain
Unit
Battles/wars
Awards
Cotton's voice
Cotton on his bill to mandate compony disclosure of foreign subsidies prior to merger
Recorded December 8, 2022

Cotton was elected as the U.S. representative for Arkansas's 4th congressional district in 2012 and to the Senate at age 37 in 2014, defeating two-term Democratic incumbent Mark Pryor. In 2024, Cotton was selected as chair of the Senate Republican Conference.

Early life and education

Thomas Bryant Cotton was born on May 13, 1977, in Dardanelle, Arkansas.[1] His father, Thomas Leonard "Len" Cotton, was a district supervisor in the Arkansas Department of Health, and his mother, Avis (née Bryant) Cotton, was a schoolteacher who later became principal of their district's middle school.[2] Cotton's family had lived in rural Arkansas for seven generations, and he grew up on his family's cattle farm.[3][4] He attended Dardanelle High School, where he played on the local and regional basketball teams; standing 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) tall, he was usually required to play center.[4][5]

Cotton was accepted to Harvard College after graduating from high school in 1995. At Harvard, he majored in government and was a member of the editorial board of The Harvard Crimson, often dissenting from the liberal majority.[5] In articles, Cotton addressed what he saw as "sacred cows" such as affirmative action.[6] He graduated with an A.B. magna cum laude in 1998 after only three years of study. Cotton's senior thesis focused on The Federalist Papers.[4]

After graduating from Harvard College in 1998, Cotton was accepted into a master's program at Claremont Graduate University. He left in 1999, saying that he found academic life "too sedentary", and instead enrolled at Harvard Law School,[4] graduating with his Juris Doctor in 2002.[7]

Career

After graduating from Harvard Law School, Cotton spent one year as a law clerk for Judge Jerry Edwin Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He then went into private practice as an associate at law firms Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Cooper & Kirk[8] in Washington, D.C., until he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2005.[9]

Military service

On January 11, 2005, Cotton enlisted in the United States Army.[10] He entered Officer Candidate School (OCS) in March 2005 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in June.[11] He completed the U.S. Army Ranger Course,[12][13] a 62-day small unit tactics and leadership program that earned him the Ranger tab, and Airborne School to earn the Parachutist Badge.[11]

 
Cotton in Baghdad, 2006

In May 2006, Cotton was deployed to Baghdad as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) as a platoon leader with the 101st Airborne Division. In Iraq, he led a 41-man air assault infantry platoon in the 506th Infantry Regiment, and planned and performed daily combat patrols.[11] In December 2006 Cotton was promoted to first lieutenant and reassigned to the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, as a platoon leader.[14]

From October 2008 to July 2009,[citation needed] Cotton was deployed to eastern Afghanistan. He was assigned within the Train Advise Assist Command – East at its Gamberi forward operating base (FOB) in Laghman Province as the operations officer of a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), where he planned daily counter-insurgency and reconstruction operations.[11]

Cotton was honorably discharged in September 2009. During his time in the service, he completed two combat deployments overseas, was awarded a Bronze Star, two Army Commendation Medals, a Combat Infantryman Badge, a Ranger tab, an Afghanistan Campaign Medal, and an Iraq Campaign Medal.[11]

Following his active duty service, Cotton went to work for management consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

In July 2010, Cotton entered the Army Reserve (USAR). He was discharged in May 2013.[15]

2006 letter to The New York Times

In June 2006, while stationed in Iraq, Cotton gained public attention after writing an open letter to the editor of The New York Times, asserting three journalists had violated "espionage laws" by publishing an article detailing a classified government program monitoring terrorists' finances. The Times did not publish Cotton's letter, but it was published on Power Line, a conservative blog that had been copied on the email.[16][17] In the letter, Cotton called for the journalists to be prosecuted for espionage "to the fullest extent of the law" and incarcerated. He accused the newspaper of having "gravely endangered the lives of my soldiers and all other soldiers and innocent Iraqis". Cotton's claims circulated online and were reprinted in full elsewhere.[18] According to Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University in 2011, the Espionage Act has never been used against journalists. Rosen argued accusing investigative journalists of engaging in espionage is "essentially saying that they’re working for another power, or aiding the enemy. That is culture war tactics taken to an extreme."[18]

Army Ranger controversy

In 2021, Salon reported that Cotton falsely claimed in campaign ads and videos from 2011 to 2014 that he had served in Iraq and Afghanistan and earned a Bronze Star as a U.S. Army Ranger even though he did not serve in the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment.[13][19][20][21] Fact-checking site Snopes rated Salon's reporting as true.[22] In response to the article, Democratic congressman Jason Crow, who served in the 75th Ranger Regiment, criticized Cotton for calling himself a Ranger. A spokesperson for Cotton said, "To be clear, as he's stated many times, Senator Cotton graduated from Ranger School, earned the Ranger Tab, and served a combat tour with the 101st Airborne, not the 75th Ranger Regiment."[23] As the Salon story garnered widespread attention, Cotton's spokeswoman recommended that the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette talk to retired Command Sergeant Major Rick Merritt, a former regimental sergeant major of the 75th Ranger Regiment, who said that Cotton is "100% a Ranger. He will always be a Ranger. It’s unfair. It’s almost slanderous."[21]

In an article on the controversy, Business Insider wrote, "[w]hile the distinction [between being a "Ranger" and attending Ranger School] is rarely brought up outside of military circles, it has been fiercely debated among veterans and encapsulates the nuances of military titles."[24]

Cotton dismissed allegations of falsifying his military record as politically driven. "I graduated from the Ranger School, I wore the Ranger tab in combat with the 101st Airborne in Iraq. This is not about my military record. This is about my politics."[25]

U.S. House of Representatives

Shortly after Cotton's Afghanistan deployment ended, he was introduced to Chris Chocola, a former congressman and the president of Club for Growth, a Republican political action committee that became one of Cotton's top contributors.[4] Cotton considered a run against incumbent Democratic U.S. senator Blanche Lincoln in 2010 but declined due to lack of donors and believing it was premature.[5][26]

Cotton ran for Congress in Arkansas's 4th congressional district after Democratic incumbent Mike Ross announced in 2011 that he would not seek reelection.[4][27][28]

Elections

2012

See also: 2012 United States House of Representatives elections in Arkansas § District 4
 
Cotton participating in a 2012 congressional debate at Southern Arkansas University

In September 2011, Arkansas Times editor Max Brantley, criticized Cotton for a 1998 article he wrote in The Harvard Crimson in which he questioned the internet's value as a teaching tool in the classroom, saying the internet had "too many temptations" to be useful in schools and libraries. Cotton later said the internet had matured since he wrote the article.[29][30]

Beth Anne Rankin, the 2010 Republican nominee, and John David Cowart, who was backed by Louisiana businessman and philanthropist Edgar Cason, were the only other Republican candidates in the race after Marcus Richmond dropped out in February 2012.[5] In the May 22 primary, Cotton won the Republican nomination with 57.6% of the vote; Rankin finished second with 37.1%.[31]

The Club for Growth endorsed Cotton.[32] Of the $2.2 million Cotton raised for his campaign, Club for Growth donors accounted for $315,000 and were his largest supporters.[4] Senator John McCain also endorsed him.[33] Cotton was supported by both the Tea Party movement and the Republican establishment.[34][35]

In the November 6 general election, Cotton defeated state senator Gene Jeffress, 59.5% to 36.7%.[31] He was the second Republican since Reconstruction Era of the United States to represent the 4th district. The first, Jay Dickey, held it from 1993 to 2001, during the presidency of Bill Clinton, whose residence was in the district at the time.[36] On January 3, 2013, Cotton was sworn into the House of Representatives by Speaker John Boehner.[37]

Tenure

As a freshman, Cotton became a vocal opponent of the Obama administration's foreign and domestic policies. He voted for an act to eliminate the 2013 statutory pay adjustment for federal employees, which prevented a 0.5% pay increase for all federal workers from taking effect in February 2013.[38] Cotton voted against the 2013 Farm Bill over concerns about waste and fraud in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, voting later that month to strip funding from that program.[39] He also voted against the revised measure, the Agricultural Act of 2014,[40] which expanded crop insurance and a price floor for rice farmers.[41][42]

Cotton accused Obama of presenting a "false choice" between the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and war. Cotton was also criticized in some media outlets for underestimating what successful military action against Iran would entail.[43] Cotton said, "the president is trying to make you think it would be 150,000 heavy mechanized troops on the ground in the Middle East again as we saw in Iraq. That's simply not the case." Drawing a comparison to President Clinton's actions in 1998 during the Bombing of Iraq, he elaborated: "Several days' air and naval bombing against Iraq's weapons of mass destruction facilities for exactly the same kind of behavior. For interfering with weapons inspectors and for disobeying Security Council resolutions."[43][44] On July 21, 2015, Cotton and Mike Pompeo claimed to have uncovered the existence of secret side agreements between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on procedures for inspection and verification of Iran's nuclear activities under the JCPOA. Obama administration officials acknowledged the existence of agreements between Iran and the IAEA on the inspection of sensitive military sites, but denied that they were "secret side deals", calling them standard practice in crafting arms-control pacts and saying the administration had provided information about them to Congress.[45][46]

Committee assignments

U.S. Senate

Elections

2014

See also: 2014 United States Senate election in Arkansas
 
Senator Jon Kyl and Cotton speaking at the Hudson Institute
 
Senator Cotton and former ambassador to the United Nations John R. Bolton at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)
 
U.S. secretary of defense Ash Carter and senators Joni Ernst, Daniel Sullivan, John McCain, Tom Cotton, Lindsey Graham, and Cory Gardner attending the 2016 International Institute for Strategic Studies Asia Security Summit in Singapore

On August 6, 2013, Cotton announced he would challenge Democratic incumbent Mark Pryor for his seat in the United States Senate.[47] Stuart Rothenberg of Roll Call called Pryor the most vulnerable senator seeking reelection in 2014.[48] Cotton was endorsed by the conservative Club for Growth PAC,[49][50][51] Senator Marco Rubio,[52] the National Federation of Independent Business,[53] and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who campaigned for Cotton.[54][55] The Associated Press called the race for Cotton immediately after the polls closed;[56] he received 56.5% of the vote to Pryor's 39.4%.[57] Cotton was sworn into office on January 6, 2015.[58]

As a U.S. senator, Cotton has received multiple death threats. In 2018, Adam Albrett of Fairfax County, Virginia, was arrested for "faxing death threats" against President Donald Trump and members of Congress, including Cotton. Police traced the fax to Albrett using the phone number in the fax header.[59]

In October 2019, local authorities charged James Powell, a 43-year-old Arkansas resident, with "first-degree terroristic threatening" after an investigation by U.S. Capitol Police and the FBI. The felony charge carries a maximum six-year prison sentence and $10,000 fine. Powell also threatened Arkansas Representative Rick Crawford with death.[60][61] In January 2020, 78-year-old Henry Edward Goodloe was sentenced to two years' probation for sending Cotton a threatening letter and a package containing white powder. Goodloe admitted to mailing an envelope containing white powder to Cotton's office, with a note stating, "You ignored me. Maybe this will get your attention." The Senate mail facility intercepted the letter, which included Goodloe's home address, and alerted a hazardous response team which determined the powder was unbleached flour and starch.[62]

2020

See also: 2020 United States Senate election in Arkansas

Cotton was reelected, defeating Libertarian challenger Ricky Dale Harrington Jr. Though Cotton outperformed President Donald Trump in the concurrent presidential election by 4.1%, the election saw an undervote of 26,000 compared to the presidential election. Harrington's 33.5% finish is the best ever for a Libertarian candidate in a U.S. Senate election by vote percentage, surpassing the previous record set in 2016 in Alaska,[63][64] and also by total number of votes (399,390, surpassing the previous record of 369,807 set by Michael Cloud in Massachusetts in 2002). Per exit polls, this largely appears to be due to many Democrats voting for Harrington as there was no Democratic candidate on the ballot (82% of Democratic voters backed Harrington).[65]

Tenure

Cassandra Butts nomination

In February 2015, Obama renominated Cassandra Butts, a former White House lawyer, to be the United States ambassador to the Bahamas. Her nomination was blocked by several senators. First, Ted Cruz placed a blanket hold on all U.S. State Department nominees.[66] Cotton specifically blocked the nominations of Butts and ambassador nominees to Sweden and Norway after the Secret Service leaked private information about a fellow member of Congress, although that issue was unrelated to those nominees. Cotton eventually released his holds on the nominees to Sweden and Norway, but kept his hold on Butts's nomination.[66]

Butts told New York Times columnist Frank Bruni that she had gone to see Cotton about his objections to her nomination and said he had told her that because he knew that Obama and Butts were friends, it was a way to "inflict special pain on the president", Bruni said. Cotton's spokeswoman did not dispute Butts's characterization. Butts died on May 26, 2016, still awaiting a Senate vote.[66]

First Trump administration

 
Tom Cotton (left) with President Donald Trump and Senator David Perdue (right)

During Trump's presidency, Cotton was characterized as a Trump loyalist.[67][68] He frequently met with Trump's staff during the transition period, and according to Steve Bannon, suggested John F. Kelly as U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security.[9] Bannon told The New Yorker in November 2017, "Next to Trump, he's the elected official who gets it the most—the economic nationalism. Cotton was the one most supportive of us, up front and behind the scenes, from the beginning. He understands that the Washington élite—this permanent political class of both parties ... needs to be shattered." In the same article, Karl Rove, a senior figure in the George W. Bush administration, said Cotton was a more consensual figure than someone like Bannon.[9]

In a CNN interview shortly after the 2016 presidential election, Cotton denied that waterboarding is a form of torture. He said "tough calls" such as allowing it were an option Trump was ready to take: "If experienced intelligence officials come to the President of the United States and say we think this terrorist has critical information and we need to obtain it and this is the only way we can obtain it—it's a tough call. But the presidency is a tough job. And if you're not ready to make those tough calls, you shouldn't seek the office. Donald Trump's a pretty tough guy, and he's ready to make those tough calls". During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump said the United States should resume the use of waterboarding.[69]

In September 2020, Trump shortlisted Cotton as a potential Supreme Court nominee, but ultimately chose Amy Coney Barrett instead.[70][71] With less than two months to the next presidential election, Cotton supported an immediate Senate vote on Trump's nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy caused by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death. In March 2016, Cotton refused to consider Obama's Supreme Court nominee during a presidential election year, providing his rationale with these questions: "Why would we cut off the national debate on the next justice? Why would we squelch the voice of the populace? Why would we deny the voters a chance to weigh in on the makeup of the Supreme Court?"[72]

In early January 2021, Cotton announced he would not support any attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election during the joint congressional certification of Electoral College results on January 6, 2021.[73]

Second Trump administration

In November 2024, Cotton was selected as chair of the Senate Republican Conference.[74] He was also selected to be the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.[75]

Committee assignments

 
Senator Cotton visits Air Defenders at Osan Air Base during his three-country tour to Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan

Current

Previous

Caucuses

Political positions

Cotton is considered politically conservative. The American Conservative Union's Center for Legislative Accountability gives him a lifetime rating of 86.06.[78]

2023 Omnibus Appropriations Bill

Cotton was one of 18 Republican senators to vote for the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill that former President Donald Trump criticized. The bill earmarked $45 billion more for Ukraine to defend itself against Russia, but prohibited funding for more immigration barriers in the U.S. and did not raise border enforcement spending past current inflation levels.[79][80][81]

Race relations

 
Senator Cotton at First in the Nation Townhall, New Hampshire

Cotton drew scrutiny for columns he wrote for The Harvard Crimson about race relations in America, calling Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton "race-hustling charlatans" and saying race relations "would almost certainly improve if we stopped emphasizing race in our public life."[82]

In 2016, Cotton rejected the claim that too many criminals are being jailed, that there is over-incarceration in the United States, as "Law enforcement is able to arrest or identify a likely perpetrator for only 19 percent of property crimes and 47 percent of violent crimes. If anything, we have an under-incarceration problem".[83] Cotton said that reduced sentencing for felons would destabilize the United States, arguing that "I saw this in Baghdad. We've seen it again in Afghanistan."[83]

In November 2018, while arguing against a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill, Cotton incorrectly said that there had been no hearings on the bill. PolitiFact stated Cotton had "ignored years of congressional debate and hearings on the general topics of the bill, as well as the consideration and bipartisan passage of largely similar bills at the House committee level, by the full House, and by the Senate Judiciary Committee."[84] Arguing against the bill in question, the FIRST STEP Act, Cotton asserted that "convicts of certain sex-related crimes could accrue credits making them eligible for supervised release or 'pre-release' to a halfway house". A spokesperson for Mike Lee responded that "just because a federal offense is not on the specific list of ineligible offenses doesn't mean inmates who committed [a] non-specified offense will earn early release".[85] The bill passed 87–12 on December 18, 2018. Cotton voted against it.[86]

 
Tom Cotton and Brett Kavanaugh in August 2018

Following the murder of George Floyd, Cotton rejected the view that there is "systemic racism in the criminal justice system in America".[87] Amid the ensuing protests, Cotton advocated on Twitter that the military be used to support police, and to give "no quarter for insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters, and looters".[88] In the military, the term 'no quarter' refers to the killing of lawfully surrendering combatants, which is a war crime under the Geneva Convention. Cotton subsequently said that he was using the "colloquial" version of the phrase and cited examples of Democrats and the mainstream media using the phrase.[89][90]

A few days later, The New York Times published an opinion piece by Cotton titled "Send in the Troops", arguing for the deployment of federal troops to counter looting and rioting in major American cities. Dozens of Times staff members sharply criticized the decision to publish Cotton's article, calling its rhetoric dangerous.[91][92] Following the negative response from staffers, the Times responded by saying the piece went through a "rushed editorial process" that would be reexamined.[93] Editorial page editor James Bennet resigned days later.[94] Cotton criticized the Times for retracting his piece, saying, "The New York Times editorial page editor and owner defended it in public statements but then they totally surrendered to a woke child mob from their own newsroom that apparently gets triggered if they're presented with any opinion contrary to their own, as opposed to telling the woke children in their newsroom this is the workplace, not a social justice seminar on campus".[95]

Statements about slavery

In July 2020, Cotton introduced the Saving American History Act of 2020, proposed legislation preventing the use of federal tax dollars for the teaching of The 1619 Project, an initiative of The New York Times.[96][97][98] In an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Cotton said of slavery, "As the Founding Fathers said, it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built, but the union was built in a way, as Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction."[99] Joshua D. Rothman, a history professor at the University of Alabama, responded that slavery was neither "necessary" nor on the way to "extinction" when America was founded, because it "was a choice defended or accepted by most white Americans for generations, and it expanded dramatically between the Revolution and the Civil War".[100]

1619 Project director Nikole Hannah-Jones tweeted: "If chattel slavery—heritable, generational, permanent, race-based slavery where it was legal to rape, torture, and sell human beings for profit—were a 'necessary evil' as [Tom Cotton] says, it's hard to imagine what cannot be justified if it is a means to an end." Cotton responded, "more lies from the debunked 1619 Project" and said he was "not endorsing or justifying slavery" because he was relaying what he believed were the "views of the Founders".[101] Georgetown University historian Adam Rothman said Cotton's phrase is "really a kind of shorthand way of describing the complex set of attitudes of the founding generation and it's not really accurate."[102] "Of course slavery is an evil institution in all its forms, at all times in America's past, or around the world today", Cotton said on Fox News on July 27.[102]

COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act

Cotton was one of six Republican senators to vote against advancing the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which would allow the U.S. Justice Department to review hate crimes related to COVID-19 and establish an online database.[103][104]

Gun laws

In January 2019, Cotton was one of 31 Republican senators to cosponsor the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, a bill introduced by John Cornyn and Ted Cruz that would grant individuals with concealed carry privileges in their home state the right to exercise this right in any other state with concealed carry laws while concurrently abiding by that state's laws.[105]

Cotton has an A rating from the National Rifle Association of America (NRA), which endorsed him in the 2014 election. The NRA's Chris W. Cox said, "Tom Cotton will always stand up for the values and freedoms of Arkansas gun owners and sportsmen."[106] In response to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, Cotton said the weapon sounded like a belt-fed machine gun and that he did not believe any new gun control legislation would have prevented the shooting.[107] When it was later established that the shooter had used semi-automatic rifles with a bump stock attachment, he said he was "willing to entertain" regulation of bump stocks.[108] In June 2022, Cotton introduced the "Stop Gun Criminals Act", which sought to increase minimum sentences for existing offenses but provided no new regulation.[109][110] In May 2022, People.com listed Cotton as one of the U.S. lawmakers who had received the most funding from the NRA.[111]

Immigration

Cotton's 2012 campaign website stated, "We cannot afford to grant illegal aliens amnesty or a so-called 'earned path to citizenship'."[112]

In July 2013, after the Senate's bipartisan Gang of Eight passed the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013, an immigration reform proposal, House Republicans held a closed-door meeting to decide whether to bring the bill to a vote.[113] Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan spoke at one podium arguing for its passage;[114] Cotton spoke at another arguing against it, even exchanging terse comments with Speaker Boehner.[113] The House decided to not consider the bill.[114] Cotton supported Trump's 2017 Executive Order 13769 prohibiting immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries.[115]

On February 7, 2017, in the presence of President Trump, Cotton and Senator David Perdue proposed a new immigration bill, the RAISE Act, which would limit the family route or chain migration. The bill would set a limit on the number of refugees offered residency at 50,000 a year and would remove the Diversity Immigrant Visa. Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain expressed opposition to the bill.[116][117]

Cotton, a supporter of Trump on immigration, was present at a January 11, 2018, meeting at which Trump is alleged to have called Haiti and African nations "shithole countries".[118][119] Cotton and Senator David Perdue said in a joint statement that "we do not recall the President saying these comments specifically".[120] In a statement, the White House did not deny that Trump had made the comment, although Trump did in a tweet the following day.[118] The Washington Post reported that Cotton and Perdue told the White House they heard "shithouse" rather than "shithole".[121] Cotton reiterated on CBS's Face The Nation, "I certainly didn't hear what Senator Durbin has said repeatedly". "Senator Durbin has a history of misrepresenting what happens in White House meetings, though, so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised by that", Cotton added.[122] Slate magazine asserted that Cotton was referring to a misquotation Dick Durbin made of a 2013 gathering at the Obama White House at which Durbin was not present, nor had he claimed to be present. Durbin was not the only person at the meeting to confirm Trump's words; another was Lindsey Graham.[119][123]

In December 2018, Cotton placed a senatorial hold on H.R.7164 – A Bill to add Ireland to the E-3 Non-immigrant Visa Program.[124] The bill did not create new non-immigrant visas, but rather allowed Irish college graduates to apply for any surplus E-3 visas in Specialty Occupations that had gone unused by Australians within their annual cap of 10,500.[125] The bipartisan bill had passed the House of Representatives on November 28, 2018, and had also received the backing of the Trump administration. Because of Cotton's hold, it did not reach the Senate floor for consideration.[126]

Cotton's immigration positions have led to protests at his Washington office. In January 2018, five demonstrators were arrested for obstructing his office while they were protesting his position on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. They were released after paying a $50 fine.[127]

In February 2021, in a speech at CPAC, Cotton criticized the Democrats' and Joe Biden's immigration policies. Cotton claimed, "They have halted deportations for all illegal aliens. Murderers, rapists, terrorists, MS-13 gang members are not being deported." PolitiFact rated Cotton's claim as "False" and elaborated that the "Biden's administration ordered a 100-day deportation pause, but it did not apply to criminals such as murderers, rapists, terrorists or gang members."[128]

In September 2021, the Senate voted along partisan lines to reject Cotton's amendment that sought to curtail assistance to Afghan refugees after the Taliban took over Afghanistan, and hinder the refugees' ability to obtain federally recognized identification cards without proving their identity.[129]

Health and social issues

Cotton opposed the Affordable Care Act, saying in 2012 that "the first step is to repeal that law, which is offensive to a free society and a free people".[130][131]

In April 2019, Cotton called the Southern Poverty Law Center a "political hate group" and asked the IRS to check whether it should retain its tax-exempt status.[132]

In 2012, Cotton said, "Strong families also depend on strong marriages, and I support the traditional understanding of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. I also support the Defense of Marriage Act."[133] In 2013, Cotton voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, saying that the federal powers in the act were too broad.[133][134]

In June 2013, Cotton voted in favor of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a bill to ban abortion after 20 or more weeks following fertilization.[135] He has said that Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey were "wrongly decided as a constitutional matter" and that the legality of abortion should be up to politicians in the individual states.[136][137] He was one of 183 co-sponsors of the version of the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act introduced in 2013.[138] After Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, Cotton called Roe a "tragic mistake" that had been "corrected" and said he "highly commends the millions of Americans who toiled for years to achieve this great victory for unborn life and self-government.”[139]

Cotton has said, "I oppose the destruction of human embryos to conduct stem-cell research and all forms of human cloning."[140]

Student loans

In August 2013, Cotton voted against the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act of 2013, which sets interest rates on student loans to the 10-year Treasury note plus a varying markup for undergraduate and graduate students. He preferred a solution that ended what he called the "federal-government monopoly on the student-lending business", referring to the provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that changed the way the federal government makes student loans.[141]

January 6

On January 6, 2021, Cotton released a statement repudiating the attack on the Capitol:[142]

Last summer, as insurrection gripped the streets, I called to send in the troops if necessary to restore order. Today, insurrectionists occupied our Capitol. Fortunately, the Capitol Police and other law-enforcement agencies restored order without the need for federal troops. But the principle remains the same: no quarter for insurrectionists. Those who attacked the Capitol today should face the full extent of federal law.

He subsequently repeated his earlier description of those involved as "insurrectionists" and said they should be brought to justice.[143]

On May 28, 2021, Cotton voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the 2021 United States Capitol attack.[144]

Ranked-choice voting

After Democrat Mary Peltola won the 2022 Alaska's at-large congressional district special election, defeating former Alaska governor and Republican Sarah Palin, Cotton blasted the ranked-choice voting system that Alaska used to conduct its election, writing: "60% of Alaska voters voted for a Republican, but thanks to a convoluted process and ballot exhaustion—which disenfranchises voters—a Democrat won".[145]

Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023

Cotton was among the 31 Senate Republicans who voted against final passage of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, citing a provision in the bill that would limit defense spending increases to a lower rate than inflation. Cotton said, "Unfortunately, this bill poses a mortal risk to our national security by cutting our defense budget, which I cannot support as grave dangers gather on the horizon."[146][147]

Foreign policy views

 
US congressional delegation at Halifax International Security Forum 2014

Cotton, through his foreign policy views, has been characterized as a war hawk.[148][149]

During a February 5, 2015, Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Cotton called for housing more prisoners at Guantanamo Bay instead of closing it. He said of the detainees in the camp, "every last one them can rot in hell, but as long as they don't do that they can rot in Guantanamo Bay".[9][150] The following June, he was one of 21 Senate Republicans to oppose an amendment to the 2016 Defense Authorization Act that would impair any future president's ability to authorize torture. The amendment, which passed, had bipartisan support and was sponsored by John McCain and Dianne Feinstein.[151][152]

In September 2016, Cotton was one of 34 senators to sign a letter to United States secretary of state John Kerry advocating that the United States use "all available tools to dissuade Russia from continuing its airstrikes in Syria" from an Iranian airbase near Hamadan "that are clearly not in our interest" and stating that there should be clear enforcement by the US of the airstrikes violating "a legally binding Security Council Resolution" on Iran.[153]

In July 2017, Cotton voted in favor of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that grouped together sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea.[154]

In December 2018, after Trump announced the withdrawal of American troops in Syria, Cotton was one of six senators to sign a letter expressing concern about the move and their belief "that such action at this time is a premature and costly mistake that not only threatens the safety and security of the United States, but also emboldens ISIS, Bashar al Assad, Iran, and Russia."[155] In January 2019, Cotton was one of 11 Republican senators to vote to advance legislation intended to block Trump's intent to lift sanctions against three Russian companies.[156]

In August 2019, it was reported that Cotton had suggested to Trump and the Danish ambassador that the U.S. should buy Greenland.[157][158][159] Cotton supports U.S. withdrawal from the Open Skies agreement, which lets nations use special aircraft to monitor each other's military activities. In 2018, he asserted that the agreement was outdated and that it favored Russian interests.[160]

China

In 2018, Cotton was a cosponsor of the Countering the Chinese Government and Communist Party's Political Influence Operations Act, a bill introduced by Marco Rubio and Catherine Cortez Masto that would grant the U.S. secretary of state and the director of national intelligence (DNI) the authority to create an interagency task force with the purpose of examining attempts by China to influence the U.S. and key allies.[161]

In August 2018, Cotton and 16 other lawmakers urged the Trump administration to impose sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act against Chinese officials who are responsible for human rights violations in western China's Xinjiang region targeting the Uyghur ethnic minority.[162] They wrote in a bipartisan letter, "The detention of as many as a million or more Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in 'political reeducation' centers or camps requires a tough, targeted, and global response".[163]

In February 2019, Cotton was one of the group of Senate Republicans who signed a letter to Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi requesting that Pelosi invite President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen to address a joint meeting of Congress. The request came amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and China and was expected to anger Chinese leadership if granted.[164]

In May 2019, when asked about the impact of tariffs on farmers in Arkansas, Cotton said there would be "some sacrifices on the part of Americans, I grant you that, but I also would say that sacrifice is pretty minimal compared to the sacrifices that our soldiers make overseas that are fallen heroes that are laid to rest in Arlington make", and that farmers were willing to make sacrifices in order for the U.S. to fend off against Chinese attempts to displace the U.S. globally.[165]

In May 2019, Cotton was a cosponsor of the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced by Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin that was intended to disrupt China's consolidation or expansion of its claims of jurisdiction over both the sea and air space in disputed zones in the South China Sea.[166]

In July 2019, Cotton and Senator Chris Van Hollen were the primary sponsors of the Defending America's 5G Future Act, a bill that would prevent Huawei from being removed from the "entity list" of the Commerce Department without an act of Congress and authorize Congress to block administration waivers for U.S. companies to do business with Huawei. The bill would also codify Trump's executive order from the previous May that empowered his administration to block foreign tech companies deemed a national security threat from conducting business in the United States.[167]

In April 2020, Cotton said that Chinese students in the United States should be restricted to studying the humanities and banned from studying science-related fields. In an interview with Fox News, he said, "It is a scandal to me that we have trained so many of the Chinese Communist Party's brightest minds."[168][169]

On August 10, 2020, Cotton, along with 10 other U.S. individuals, was sanctioned by the Chinese government for "behaving badly on Hong Kong-related issues".[170]

In March 2023, Cotton and Senator Katie Britt introduced the Not One More Inch or Acre Act, which would ban any Chinese national or Chinese entity from owning American land.[171]

COVID-19

On January 28, 2020, in the context of the emergence of COVID-19, Cotton urged the Trump administration to halt commercial flights from China to the United States. On January 31, spurred in part by Cotton's warnings, the Trump administration banned most travel from China.[172][173][174][175]

In a February 16, 2020, Fox News interview,[176] Cotton said that the coronavirus may have started at the biosafety level 4 super laboratory in Wuhan, China. "Now, we don't have evidence that this disease originated there", Cotton said, "but because of China's duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning we need to at least ask the question".[177][178] Articles published by The New York Times and The Washington Post the same day reported that scientists had dismissed claims that the Chinese government created the virus. The Times said this was because of its resemblance to the SARS virus, which originated with bats.[178][177] In another interview on Fox the next day, Cotton said of the two articles, "It tells you the Chinese Communist Party, just like any communist party, has a widespread propaganda effort."[179] The Post called Cotton's comments "debunked" and "conspiracy theory" for 15 months until issuing a correction: "The term 'debunked' and The Post's use of 'conspiracy theory' have been removed because, then as now, there was no determination about the origins of the virus." Molecular biologist Richard Ebright said The Post had omitted his views supporting the lab leak hypothesis and "materially misrepresented" his views, adding, "Watching 'the first rough draft of history' being written as a partisan exercise, rather than a journalistic exercise, was dismaying."[178][180]

Cotton tweeted around March 2020: "we will hold accountable those who inflicted it on the world" for what it had done. To a tweet stating "China will pay for this", he responded "Correct."[181] In late April 2020, Cotton said in a Fox News interview that the non-containment of the pandemic was a "deliberate" and "malevolent" attack by Chinese government on the rest of the world. "They did not want to see their relative power and standing in the world decline because the virus was contained [in China]", he said.[182][183]

In early 2023, the United States Department of Energy assessed that a "lab leak was to blame" for the emergence of COVID-19. The assessment, which mirrored a similar assessment by the FBI,[184] was made with a "low confidence" level. In response, Cotton said, "being proven right doesn’t matter. What matters is holding the Chinese Communist Party accountable so this doesn’t happen again."[185][186]

Israeli–Palestinian conflict

In July 2017, Cotton co-sponsored the bipartisan Israel Anti-Boycott Act (S.270), which amended existing federal law that criminalized foreign-led boycotts of U.S. allies, by specifically prohibiting support to foreign governments or organizations imposing a boycott on Israel. The proposal generated controversy as some interpreted it as a restriction on activities by private citizens and a potential violation of constitutional rights.[187][188] Others viewed it as a clarification of the existing Export Administration Act of 1979 in response to the 2016 United Nations Human Rights Council resolutions that called on corporations to reassess business activities that may impact Palestinian human rights.[189]

In October 2023, Cotton condemned Hamas's actions during the Israel–Hamas war and expressed support for Israel and its right to self-defense. He denied that Israel was committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip, saying, "If Hamas uses schools and kindergartens and mosques for military purposes, Israel has every right under the laws of war to strike back."[190] He added: "As far as I’m concerned, Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza. Anything that happens in Gaza is the responsibility of Hamas."[191] On November 9, 2023, Cotton asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether journalists working for international news outlets "committed federal crimes by supporting Hamas terrorists".[192]

On February 28, 2024, three days after United States airman Aaron Bushnell self-immolated outside the D.C. Israeli Embassy in protest of U.S. support of Israel, Cotton sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin calling Bushnell's death "an act of horrific violence" that was "in support of a terrorist group [Hamas]." He went on to ask about internal efforts to address extremism in the military.[193]

In April 2024, Cotton threatened to cut U.S. funding to the International Criminal Court (ICC), sanction ICC employees, and bar the employees and their families from entering the U.S. if the ICC issues arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials.[194]

After the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant on November 21, 2024, Cotton called it a "kangaroo court" and the prosecutor, Karim Khan, a "deranged fanatic." On Twitter, he called for The Hague to be invaded should Netanyahu be arrested, writing: "Woe to [Khan] and anyone who tries to enforce these outlaw warrants. Let me give them all a friendly reminder: the American law on the ICC is known as The Hague Invasion Act for a reason. Think about it."[195]

Iran

 
Cotton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in July 2018

In 2013, Cotton introduced legislative language to prohibit trade with relatives of individuals subject to U.S. sanctions against Iran. According to Cotton, this would include "a spouse and any relative to the third degree", such as "parents, children, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, grandparents, great grandparents, grandkids, great grandkids." After Cotton's amendment came under harsh criticism regarding its constitutionality, he withdrew it.[196][197]

In March 2015, Cotton wrote and sent a letter to the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, signed by 47 of the Senate's 54 Republicans, that cast doubt on the Obama administration's authority to engage in nuclear-proliferation negotiations with Iran. The next president, they asserted, could reject it "with the stroke of a pen".[198] The open letter was released in English as well as a poorly translated Persian version, which "read like a middle schooler wrote it", according to Foreign Policy.[199] Within hours, commentators[200][clarification needed] suggested that the letter prepared by Cotton constituted a violation of the Logan Act.[201][202] Questions were also raised about whether it reflected a flawed interpretation of the Treaty Clause of the United States Constitution.[203]

President Obama mocked the letter, calling it an "unusual coalition" with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as well as an interference with the ongoing negotiations of a comprehensive agreement on the Iranian nuclear program.[204] In addition, Obama said, "I'm embarrassed for them. For them to address a letter to the Ayatollah—the Supreme Leader of Iran, who they claim is our mortal enemy—and their basic argument to them is: don't deal with our president, 'cause you can't trust him to follow through on an agreement ... That's close to unprecedented."[205]

Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, responded to the letter by saying "[the senators'] letter in fact undermines the credibility of thousands of such mere executive agreements that have been or will be entered into by the US with various other governments". Zarif pointed out that the nuclear deal is not supposed to be an Iran–US deal, but an international one, saying, "change of administration does not in any way relieve the next administration from international obligations undertaken by its predecessor in a possible agreement about Iran's peaceful nuclear program." He continued, "I wish to enlighten the authors that if the next administration revokes any agreement with the stroke of a pen, as they boast, it will have simply committed a blatant violation of international law."[206]

Cotton defended the letter amid criticism that it undermined Obama's efforts, saying, "It's so important we communicated this message straight to Iran... No regrets at all... they already control Tehran, increasingly they control Damascus and Beirut and Baghdad and now Sana'a as well."[207][208][209] He continued to defend his action in an interview with MSNBC by saying, "There are nothing but hardliners in Iran. They've been killing Americans for 35 years. They kill hundreds of troops in Iraq. Now they control five capitals in the Middle East. There are nothing but hardliners in Tehran and if they do all those things without a nuclear weapon, imagine what they'll do with a nuclear weapon."[210]

Cotton received extensive financial support from pro-Israel groups due to his opposition to the Iran nuclear deal and for his hawkish stance toward Iran. Several pro-Israel Republican billionaires who contributed millions of dollars to William Kristol's Emergency Committee for Israel spent $960,000 to support Cotton.[211]

In July 2018, Cotton introduced the Iran Hostage Taking Accountability Act, a bill that would call for the president to compose a list of Iranians that were "knowingly responsible for or complicit in...the politically-motivated harassment, abuse, extortion, arrest, trial, conviction, sentencing, or imprisonment" of Americans and have those on the list face sanctions along with enabling the president to impose sanctions on their family members and bar them from entering the United States. Cotton stated that Iran had not changed much since 1981 and called for Americans to avoid Iran and its borders as there were "many friendly countries in the region that you can visit where you'd be safer".[212]

In May 2019, Cotton said that in the event of a war with Iran, the United States could easily win in "two strikes. The first strike and the last strike".[148] He said there would be a "furious response" by the United States if there was any provocation from Iran.[148]

Russia

On March 13, 2018, in an interview on conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt's radio show, Cotton said he expected Russian officials to "lie and deny" about the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, an ex-Russian spy on British soil.[213] After Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Theresa May gave Russia 24 hours to respond to the poison, Cotton said, "I suspect the response will be the typical Russian response. They’ll lie and deny."[213] He went on to suggest retaliatory measures that the U.K. and the U.S. could implement in response to Russia's alleged actions, including renewed sanctions on oil.[213]

Reception

Former chief presidential strategist Steve Bannon has said of Cotton, "Next to Trump, he’s the elected official who gets it the most—the economic nationalism. Cotton was the one most supportive of us, up front and behind the scenes, from the beginning. He understands that the Washington élite—this permanent political class of both parties, between the K Street consultants and politicians—needs to be shattered".[214]

Cotton has been called one of the leading voices of Trumpism.[215] The Washington Post wrote: "What's fascinating is how Cotton has adjusted since Trump's victory. Some have argued that Cotton could be the "heir" to the Trumpism wing of the Republican Party.[215]

Personal life

Cotton married attorney Anna Peckham in 2014. They have two children.[216]

Cotton has said that Walter Russell Mead, Robert D. Kaplan, Henry Kissinger, Daniel Silva, C. J. Box,[217] and Jason Matthews are among his favorite authors.[218]

In 2019, Cotton published a book about the role of the Old Guard at Arlington National Cemetery, partly based on his service in that unit as an officer.[219]

Electoral history

Year Office Party Primary General Result Swing
Total % P. Total % ±% P.
2012 U.S. Representative Republican 20,899 57.55% 1st 154,149 59.53% +19.38% 1st Won Gain
2014 U.S. Senator Republican 478,819 56.50% N/A 1st Won Gain
2020 Republican 793,871 66.53% +10.03% 1st Won Hold

Military awards

Cotton's military awards and decorations include:[15]

   Combat Infantryman Badge
   Parachutist Badge
   Air Assault Badge
  Ranger Tab
  101st Airborne Division Combat Service ID Badge
  506th Infantry Regimental Distinctive Insignia
  Bronze Star Medal
Army Commendation Medal (with Oak leaf cluster)
  Army Achievement Medal
  Air Force Achievement Medal
  National Defense Service Medal
Afghanistan Campaign Medal (with two campaign stars)
Iraq Campaign Medal (with campaign star)
  Global War on Terrorism Service Medal
  Army Service Ribbon
  Overseas Service Ribbon
  NATO Medal

See also

References

  1. ^ "Tom Cotton". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Archived from the original on October 2, 2019. Retrieved November 5, 2018.
  2. ^ Lyons, Gene (October 9, 2014). "Tom Cotton wouldn't be anywhere without government dollars". Arkansas Times. Archived from the original on March 1, 2019. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  3. ^ "New Arkansas Rep. Cotton Draws Spotlight; 113th Congress Sworn In". Times Record News. January 4, 2013. Archived from the original on June 12, 2020. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Ball, Molly (September 17, 2014). "The Making of a Conservative Superstar". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on June 9, 2020. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  5. ^ a b c d Bolduc, Brian (October 7, 2011). "G.I. Tom". National Review. Archived from the original on April 14, 2023. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  6. ^ Levy, Gabrielle (April 16, 2015). "Tom Cotton Takes On the World". U.S. News & World Report. Archived from the original on December 2, 2017. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  7. ^ "COTTON, Tom". United States Congress. Archived from the original on October 2, 2019. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  8. ^ Franco, Cheere (April 24, 2016). "HIGH PROFILE: Senator Tom Cotton". Arkansas Democrat Gazette. Archived from the original on November 14, 2021. Retrieved November 11, 2021.
  9. ^ a b c d Toobin, Jeffrey (November 13, 2017). "Is Tom Cotton the Future of Trumpism?". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on April 26, 2020. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  10. ^ Rogin, Ali (July 18, 2016). "Tom Cotton: Everything You Need to Know". ABC News. Archived from the original on August 9, 2020. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
  11. ^ a b c d e "NATIONAL DEFENSE PAC today announces with extreme pride its endorsement of Congressman Thomas Cotton" (PDF) (Press release). National Defense PAC. October 6, 2014. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 30, 2020. Retrieved January 31, 2021.
  12. ^ "Fort Benning | Student Information". Ranger School Student Information. Archived from the original on January 31, 2021. Retrieved January 31, 2021.
  13. ^ a b Sollenberger, Roger (January 23, 2021). "Sen. Tom Cotton campaigned on his "experience as an Army Ranger" — but he didn't have any". Salon. Archived from the original on January 31, 2021. Retrieved January 31, 2021.
  14. ^ Cotton, Tom (May 31, 2017). "Congress must support Arlington expansion". Philadelphia Media Network. Archived from the original on December 2, 2017. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  15. ^ a b "Tom Cotton Army Service Record". MuckRock. September 2, 2014. Archived from the original on June 12, 2020. Retrieved March 23, 2015.
  16. ^ Johnson, Scott (October 23, 2012). "A Fateful Letter to the Editor of the Times". Power Line. Archived from the original on June 23, 2016. Retrieved May 20, 2016.
  17. ^ Leibovich, Mark (April 5, 2015). "Tom Cotton Is Not Mailing It In". The New York Times Magazine. Archived from the original on October 6, 2016. Retrieved February 28, 2017.
  18. ^ a b Baumann, Nick (November 10, 2011). "The GOP Candidate Who Wants Journos Jailed". Mother Jones. Archived from the original on June 4, 2020. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  19. ^ Sollenberger, Roger (January 31, 2021). "Tom Cotton's "Army Ranger" dissembling goes back at least eight years". Salon. Archived from the original on January 30, 2021. Retrieved January 31, 2021.
  20. ^ Wade, Peter (January 23, 2021). "Sen. Tom Cotton bragged he is an 'Army Ranger.' He Was Not". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on January 27, 2021. Retrieved January 27, 2021.
  21. ^ a b Lockwood, Frank E. (January 24, 2021). "Article questions Cotton's status as Army Ranger". Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Archived from the original on January 24, 2021. Retrieved January 24, 2021.
  22. ^ Kasprak, Alex (January 24, 2021). "Did Sen. Tom Cotton Falsely Claim To Have Been an 'Army Ranger in Afghanistan and Iraq'?". Snopes. Archived from the original on January 17, 2022. Retrieved January 29, 2021.
  23. ^ "'You shouldn't be calling yourself a Ranger': Tom Cotton's military service is under scrutiny from a fellow Army veteran in Congress". Business Insider. January 23, 2021. Archived from the original on January 24, 2021. Retrieved January 24, 2021.
  24. ^ Choi, David. "'This is about my politics': Tom Cotton says his military record was scrutinized because he's a 'conservative veteran'". Business Insider. Archived from the original on January 31, 2021. Retrieved January 31, 2021.
  25. ^ Leon, Melissa (January 26, 2021). "Sen. Tom Cotton defends military service, says alleged smear is 'about my politics'". Fox News. Archived from the original on January 31, 2021. Retrieved January 31, 2021.
  26. ^ LoGiurato, Brett (August 12, 2013). "10 Things Everyone Should Know About Tom Cotton, The Arkansas Politician Who Should Scare The Hell Out Of Democrats". Business Insider. Archived from the original on November 5, 2014. Retrieved September 5, 2014.
  27. ^ Joseph, Cameron (July 25, 2011). "Rep. Mike Ross to retire". The Hill. Archived from the original on November 29, 2011. Retrieved December 2, 2011.
  28. ^ Brantley, Max (July 25, 2011). "U.S. Rep. Mike Ross won't seek 2012 re-election". Arkansas Times. Archived from the original on December 2, 2017. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  29. ^ Brantley, Max (September 1, 2011). "Tom Cotton learns value of Internet". Arkansas Times. Archived from the original on December 2, 2017. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  30. ^ Minton, Michelle (September 26, 2016). "Tom Cotton's Last Minute Anti-Gambling Bill". Competitive Enterprise Institute. Archived from the original on December 2, 2017. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  31. ^ a b "Arkansas's 4th Congressional District elections, 2012". Ballotpedia. Archived from the original on June 3, 2017. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  32. ^ "CLUB FOR GROWTH PAC ENDORSES TOM COTTON FOR CONGRESS" (Press release). Club for Growth. February 14, 2012. Archived from the original on August 4, 2021. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  33. ^ Miller, Joshua (May 3, 2012). "Arkansas: Tom Cotton Gets John McCain Endorsement". Roll Call. Archived from the original on December 2, 2017. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  34. ^ "Tea Party Express Endorses Tom Cotton in Arkansas" (Press release). Tea Party Express. Archived from the original on March 27, 2014. Retrieved December 13, 2013.
  35. ^ Joseph, Cameron (July 31, 2013). "Cotton's decision to run for Senate gives GOP 'rock star' candidate in Arkansas". The Hill. Archived from the original on December 13, 2013. Retrieved December 13, 2013.
  36. ^ Merica, Dan (December 3, 2012). "Freshman's House office search foreshadows the legislator he might be". CNN. Archived from the original on December 3, 2017. Retrieved December 3, 2017.
  37. ^ Kranz, Michal (November 30, 2017). "Meet Tom Cotton, the Arkansas senator with Trump's ear who graduated from Harvard in 3 years and might become the next head of the CIA". Business Insider. Archived from the original on December 2, 2017. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  38. ^ "HR 273 – Eliminates the 2013 Statutory Pay Adjustment for Federal Employees – Voting Record". Project Vote Smart. Archived from the original on August 12, 2014. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
  39. ^ Huey-Burns, Caitlin (July 16, 2013). "Tom Cotton a Key House Voice on Immigration Reform". RealClearPolitics. Archived from the original on October 28, 2018. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  40. ^ "House Floor Activities Legislative Day of January 29, 2014". House of Representatives. Archived from the original on August 28, 2014. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
  41. ^ Nixon, Ron (February 4, 2014). "Senate Passes Long-Stalled Farm Bill, With Clear Winners and Losers". The New York Times. Archived from the original on July 22, 2016. Retrieved February 28, 2017.(subscription required)
  42. ^ Liberto, Jennifer (February 4, 2014). "Senate passes farm bill". CNNMoney. Archived from the original on September 24, 2020. Retrieved August 3, 2020.
  43. ^ a b Montanaro, Domenico (April 8, 2015). "Tom Cotton: Military Action Against Iran Would Take Only 'Several Days'". NPR. Archived from the original on May 11, 2015. Retrieved April 4, 2018.
  44. ^ Kendall Breitman (April 8, 2015). "Sen. Tom Cotton says U.S. could pursue targeted attack on Iran". Politico. Archived from the original on April 10, 2015. Retrieved April 9, 2015.
  45. ^ Fabian, Jordan; Wong, Kristina (July 26, 2015). "White House launches Iran side deals counterattack". The Hill. Archived from the original on August 12, 2015. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  46. ^ Schulberg, Jessica (December 19, 2016). "John Kerry's Confident The IAEA Can Handle Iran, But Congress Isn't Buying It". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on October 11, 2017. Retrieved December 2, 2017.
  47. ^ Condon, Stephanie (August 6, 2013). "Republican Rep. Tom Cotton announces bid to challenge Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark". CBS News. Archived from the original on August 7, 2013. Retrieved August 6, 2013.
  48. ^ Rothenberg, Stuart (June 9, 2014). "Mark Pryor: Still This Cycle's Most Vulnerable Senator". Roll Call. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved July 12, 2014.
  49. ^ Gentilviso, Chris (August 7, 2013). "Tom Cotton 2014 Senate Run Gets Early Club For Growth Endorsement". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on October 28, 2018. Retrieved February 17, 2020.
  50. ^ Judis, John (October 16, 2013). "The Shrinking Club for Growth". The New Republic. Archived from the original on March 25, 2017. Retrieved March 12, 2017.
  51. ^ Joseph, Cameron (August 7, 2013). "Club for Growth endorses Tom Cotton, launches ads in Arkansas Senate race". The Hill. Archived from the original on January 18, 2014. Retrieved January 16, 2014.
  52. ^ Strauss, Daniel (September 17, 2013). "Rubio Endorses Rep. Tom Cotton for Senate". Talking Points Memo. Archived from the original on May 27, 2014. Retrieved May 26, 2014.
  53. ^ Urban, Peter (July 1, 2014). "Small-business group endorses Cotton". Arkansas News. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved July 12, 2014.
  54. ^ Ramsey, David (August 21, 2014). "Mitt Romney endorses Tom Cotton". Arkansas Times. Archived from the original on December 3, 2017. Retrieved December 2, 2017.
  55. ^ Brantley, Max (August 20, 2014). "Mitt Romney to campaign for Asa Hutchinson and Tom Cotton; Democrats comment". Arkansas Times. Archived from the original on December 3, 2017. Retrieved December 2, 2017.
  56. ^ Glueck, Katie (November 4, 2014). "Cotton defeats Pryor in Arkansas". Politico. Archived from the original on December 6, 2014. Retrieved February 11, 2020.
  57. ^ "November 4, 2014 Arkansas General Election and Nonpartisan Runoff - Election Official Results". Arkansas Secretary of State. December 11, 2014. Archived from the original on September 2, 2019. Retrieved June 28, 2020.
  58. ^ Kranz, Michal. "Meet Tom Cotton, the Arkansas senator with Trump's ear who graduated from Harvard in 3 years and might become the next head of the CIA". Business Insider. Archived from the original on August 9, 2020. Retrieved February 11, 2020.
  59. ^ MacFarlane, Scott (August 23, 2018). "Virginia Man Arrested for Sending Faxes Threatening Trump: Docs". NBC 4 Washington. Archived from the original on August 9, 2020. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
  60. ^ Connolly, Griffin (October 2, 2019). "Arkansas man arrested for death threats against Sen. Tom Cotton, Rep. Rick Crawford". Roll Call. Archived from the original on August 9, 2020. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
  61. ^ "Man jailed in Faulkner Co. accused of threatening Rep. Rick Crawford and Sen. Tom Cotton". Fox 16. September 30, 2019. Archived from the original on August 9, 2020. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
  62. ^ "Arkansas man gets probation after mailing powder to senator". ABC 7. January 15, 2020. Archived from the original on August 9, 2020. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
  63. ^ "Cotton win good news, say parties of two rivals". Arkansas Online. November 7, 2020. Archived from the original on February 16, 2023. Retrieved February 25, 2021.
  64. ^ "Joe Miller Shatters Libertarian US Senate Record While 8 Others Set New State Party Marks". Smart Politics. November 20, 2016. Archived from the original on November 30, 2022. Retrieved February 25, 2021.
  65. ^ Voter Analysis, Fox News. "Fox News Voter Analysis Survey, Arkansas Senate Race". Fox News. Archived from the original on November 9, 2022. Retrieved May 2, 2021.
  66. ^ a b c Bruni, Frank (June 7, 2016). "An Obama Nominee's Crushed Hopes". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 4, 2017. Retrieved February 28, 2017.
  67. ^ "Tom Cotton is campaigning hard, just not for reelection". AP News. October 26, 2020. Archived from the original on January 2, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
  68. ^ Johnson, Eliana; Watkins, Ali (November 30, 2017). "Cotton cements his rise under Trump". Politico. Archived from the original on April 14, 2023. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
  69. ^ Manduley, Christina (November 9, 2016). "Sen. Tom Cotton: Waterboarding isn't torture". CNN. Archived from the original on November 10, 2016. Retrieved July 28, 2016.
  70. ^ Klar, Rebecca (September 9, 2020). "Tom Cotton after Trump names him potential Supreme Court nominee: 'It's time for Roe v. Wade to go'". The Hill. Archived from the original on September 11, 2020. Retrieved September 11, 2020.
  71. ^ "Amy Coney Barrett: Trump nominates conservative favourite for Supreme Court". BBC News. September 27, 2020. Archived from the original on September 26, 2020. Retrieved September 27, 2020.
  72. ^ Desjardins, Lisa (September 22, 2020). "What every Republican senator has said about filling a Supreme Court vacancy in an election year". PBS NewsHour. Archived from the original on October 31, 2020. Retrieved September 27, 2020.
  73. ^ "Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton says he won't vote to challenge the joint session of Congress". FOX13 Memphis News. January 3, 2021. Archived from the original on January 4, 2021. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
  74. ^ Weaver, Al (November 13, 2024). "Cotton joins Senate GOP leadership as conference chair". The Hill. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
  75. ^ "Tom Cotton to be chair of Senate Intelligence committee, Punchbowl News reports". Reuters. November 12, 2024. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
  76. ^ "Committee Membership List". Archived from the original on October 16, 2020. Retrieved February 18, 2021.
  77. ^ "U.S. Senate: Committee Assignments of the 117th Congress". United States Senate. Archived from the original on December 16, 2002. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
  78. ^ "Sen. Tom Cotton". American Conservative Union Foundation. Retrieved March 5, 2021.[permanent dead link‍]
  79. ^ Skinner, Anna (December 22, 2022). "Full list of Republican senators who voted to pass $1.7T omnibus bill". Newsweek. Archived from the original on April 5, 2023. Retrieved December 23, 2022.
  80. ^ Mitchell, Ellen (December 20, 2022). "Final funding bill includes $45B for Ukraine". The Hill. Archived from the original on March 24, 2023. Retrieved December 23, 2022.
  81. ^ "Massive Omnibus Bill Contains Nothing to Combat Border Crisis | Federation for American Immigration Reform". www.fairus.org. December 21, 2022. Archived from the original on April 14, 2023. Retrieved December 23, 2022.
  82. ^ Roller, Emma (August 27, 2013). "Tom Cotton: Race Relations Would Improve 'If We Stopped Emphasizing Race in Our Public Life'". Slate. Archived from the original on June 5, 2020. Retrieved June 5, 2020.
  83. ^ a b Gass, Nick (May 19, 2016). "Sen. Tom Cotton: U.S. has 'under-incarceration problem'". Politico. Archived from the original on November 16, 2018. Retrieved November 15, 2018.
  84. ^ "Were there no hearings on bipartisan criminal justice bill?". PolitiFact. Archived from the original on November 23, 2018. Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  85. ^ Everett, Burgess; Schor, Elana (November 26, 2018). "Cotton wields sex offender report to tank prisons bill". Politico. Archived from the original on December 3, 2018. Retrieved December 1, 2018.
  86. ^ Levin, Marianne (December 18, 2018). "Senate approves Trump-backed criminal justice overhaul". Politico. Archived from the original on December 19, 2018. Retrieved December 18, 2018.
  87. ^ Alberta, Tim (June 8, 2020). "Is This the Last Stand of the 'Law and Order' Republicans?". Politico. Archived from the original on February 12, 2021. Retrieved June 8, 2020.
  88. ^ Carney, Jordain (June 1, 2020). "Cotton: Trump should use Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty military to cities". The Hill. Archived from the original on June 3, 2020. Retrieved June 5, 2020.
  89. ^ Kane, Paul (June 1, 2020). "Cotton urges deployment of military in response to violence; other Republicans empathize with peaceful protesters, Floyd family". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on June 4, 2020. Retrieved June 5, 2020.
  90. ^ Kalmbacher, Colin (June 1, 2020). "Republican Senator Called for 'No Quarter' Military Response to 'Looters'. Lawyers Note That's a War Crime". lawandcrime.com. Archived from the original on June 2, 2020. Retrieved June 2, 2020.
  91. ^ Cotton, Tom (June 3, 2020). "Send in the Troops". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 8, 2020. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  92. ^ Izadi, Elahe (June 4, 2020). "New York Times staffers denounce newspaper for Tom Cotton editorial urging military incursion into U.S. cities". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on June 5, 2020. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  93. ^ Ellefson, Lindsey (June 4, 2020). "New York Times Says 'Rushed Editorial Process' Led to Tom Cotton Op-Ed". The Wrap. Archived from the original on June 4, 2020. Retrieved June 5, 2020.
  94. ^ Luscombe, Richard (June 7, 2020). "New York Times senior editor resigns amid backlash over controversial oped". The Guardian. Archived from the original on November 3, 2021. Retrieved June 7, 2020.
  95. ^ Blitzer, Ronn (June 7, 2020). "Sen. Tom Cotton blasts New York Times for caving to 'woke child mob' of staffers over op-ed". Fox News. Archived from the original on March 23, 2022. Retrieved March 19, 2022.
  96. ^ Lockwood, Frank E. (July 26, 2020). "Bill by Sen. Tom Cotton targets curriculum on slavery". Arkansas Online. Archived from the original on July 26, 2020. Retrieved July 26, 2020.
  97. ^ Srikanth, Anagha (July 23, 2020). "Sen. Tom Cotton introduces bill withholding federal funding for schools teaching the 1619 Project". The Hill. Archived from the original on July 25, 2020. Retrieved July 27, 2020.
  98. ^ Foran, Clare (July 24, 2020). "GOP Sen. Tom Cotton pitches bill to prohibit use of federal funds to teach 1619 Project". CNN. Archived from the original on July 27, 2020. Retrieved July 27, 2020.
  99. ^ Lockwood, Frank E. (July 26, 2020). "Bill by Sen. Tom Cotton targets curriculum on slavery". Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Archived from the original on September 18, 2020. Retrieved September 15, 2020.
  100. ^ Armus, Tea. "Sen. Tom Cotton wants to take 'The 1619 Project' out of classrooms. His efforts have kept it in the spotlight". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on July 27, 2020. Retrieved July 27, 2020.
  101. ^ Bowden, John (July 26, 2020). "Cotton called out for remarks on slavery in criticism of 1619 Project". The Hill. Archived from the original on July 28, 2020. Retrieved July 27, 2020.
  102. ^ a b Cole, Devan (July 28, 2020). "Tom Cotton describes slavery as a 'necessary evil' in bid to keep schools from teaching 1619 Project". CNN. Archived from the original on July 27, 2020. Retrieved July 28, 2020.
  103. ^ Rogers, Alex (April 14, 2021). "Senate advances bill to combat surge of anti-Asian hate crimes". CNN. Archived from the original on April 16, 2022. Retrieved April 14, 2021.
  104. ^ "On Cloture on the Motion to Proceed (Motion to Invoke Cloture Re: Motion to Proceed to S. 937)". United States Senate. April 14, 2021. Archived from the original on April 14, 2021. Retrieved April 14, 2021.
  105. ^ "Sens. Cruz, Cornyn file Concealed-Carry Reciprocity Bill". kcbd.com. January 10, 2019. Archived from the original on July 16, 2019. Retrieved July 16, 2019.
  106. ^ "NRA Endorses Tom Cotton for U.S. Senate in Arkansas" (Press release). NRA-PVF. September 9, 2014. Archived from the original on October 4, 2017. Retrieved October 4, 2017.
  107. ^ Shelbourne, Mallory (October 3, 2017). "Cotton: Las Vegas shooter's weapon sounded like 'belt-fed machine gun'". The Hill. Archived from the original on October 4, 2017. Retrieved October 4, 2017.
  108. ^ Paige Hymson (October 5, 2017). "After Las Vegas shooting, Sen. Tom Cotton 'willing to entertain' regulation of bump stocks for firearms". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on October 23, 2017. Retrieved June 26, 2023.(subscription required)
  109. ^ "Cotton, Colleagues Introduce Legislation to Reduce Gun Violence". Tom Cotton. June 9, 2022. Archived from the original on June 9, 2022. Retrieved June 26, 2023.
  110. ^ Jacob Sullum (June 10, 2022). "Tom Cotton, a Second Amendment Champion, Proposes a 5-Year Mandatory Minimum for Violating Arbitrary Gun Bans". Reason.com. Archived from the original on June 26, 2023. Retrieved June 26, 2023.
  111. ^ Virginia Chamlee; Aaron Parsley (May 27, 2022). "The U.S. Lawmakers Who Have Received the Most Funding from the NRA". People. Dotdash Meredith. Archived from the original on May 27, 2022. Retrieved June 26, 2023.
  112. ^ "Tom Cotton on Immigration". On the Issues. Archived from the original on December 3, 2017. Retrieved December 2, 2017.
  113. ^ a b Costa, Robert (July 15, 2013). "Picking Tom Cotton: On immigration, a freshman speaks for the right flank of the House GOP". The National Review. Archived from the original on June 7, 2016. Retrieved June 23, 2016.
  114. ^ a b Lizza, Ryan (July 20, 2016). "Occupied Territory: The Republican élite struggles over whether to resist Trump or capitulate". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on April 3, 2021. Retrieved February 17, 2020.
  115. ^ Blake, Aaron (January 29, 2017). "Coffman, Gardner join Republicans against President Trump's travel ban; here's where the rest stand". The Denver Post. Archived from the original on January 29, 2017. Retrieved January 30, 2017.
  116. ^ "A new effort to narrow the route to permanent residency in America". The Economist. February 16, 2017. Archived from the original on October 12, 2017. Retrieved September 17, 2017.
  117. ^ Alvarez, Priscilla (August 21, 2017). "Can a Decades-Old Immigration Proposal Pass Under Trump?". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on December 4, 2017. Retrieved December 2, 2017.
  118. ^ a b Vitali, Ali (January 12, 2018). "Trump referred to Haiti and African nations as 'shithole' countries". NBC News. Archived from the original on February 17, 2021. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  119. ^ a b Saletan, William (January 24, 2018). "Cotton Tales". Slate. Archived from the original on June 9, 2020. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  120. ^ Ashley Killough (January 12, 2017). "2 Republican senators in Trump meeting say they don't recall 'shithole' comment". CNN. Archived January 13, 2018, at the Wayback Machine "We do not recall the President saying these comments specifically but what he did call out was the imbalance in our current immigration system, ..."
  121. ^ Dawsey, Josh; Costa, Robert; Parker, Ashley (January 15, 2018). "Inside the tense, profane White House meeting on immigration". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on January 16, 2018. Retrieved August 14, 2018.
  122. ^ Samuels, Brett (January 14, 2018). "Cotton hits Durbin for claims of Trump's 's---hole countries' comment". The Hill. Archived from the original on August 9, 2020. Retrieved June 10, 2020.
  123. ^ Milbank, Dana (May 10, 2018). "Tom Cotton is filled with rage. Thank God he wasn't tapped as CIA director". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on June 9, 2020. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  124. ^ O'Dowd, Niall (December 21, 2018). "E3 bill dies thanks to Senator Tom Cotton and incredibly, an Irish journalist Neil Munro". IrishCentral.com. Archived from the original on December 22, 2018. Retrieved December 22, 2018.
  125. ^ "What is the E3 visa and what does it mean to the Irish?". IrishCentral.com. December 4, 2018. Archived from the original on December 21, 2018. Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  126. ^ "Irish E3 visas face further blow as another senator places hold on bill". IrishCentral.com. December 20, 2018. Archived from the original on December 20, 2018. Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  127. ^ Besson, Eric (January 19, 2018). "5 protesters, including Arkansas immigrant, arrested outside Sen. Tom Cotton's D.C. office". Arkansas Democrat Gazette. Archived from the original on August 9, 2020. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
  128. ^ "Tom Cotton falsely claims Joe Biden halted the deportation of criminals". PolitiFact. February 26, 2021. Archived from the original on February 27, 2021. Retrieved February 27, 2021.
  129. ^ "Senate narrowly turns back GOP amendment to curtail assistance to Afghan refugees". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on October 1, 2021. Retrieved October 1, 2021.
  130. ^ "4th District hopefuls split on health care law". Associated Press. September 26, 2012. Archived from the original on December 3, 2017. Retrieved December 2, 2017.
  131. ^ Ramsey, David (April 14, 2014). "How Tom Cotton talks when he talks about Obamacare". Arkansas Times. Archived from the original on August 16, 2014. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
  132. ^ 🖉Times, Valerie Richardson The Washington (April 3, 2019). "Tom Cotton calls for IRS to investigate Southern Poverty Law Center's tax-exempt status". AP News. Archived from the original on April 18, 2019. Retrieved August 15, 2019.
  133. ^ a b "Tom Cotton on Civil Rights". On the Issues. Archived from the original on March 31, 2018. Retrieved January 19, 2018.
  134. ^ Marcos, Cristina (October 6, 2014). "Woman recounts abuse in Democratic ad criticizing Tom Cotton". The Hill. Archived from the original on August 9, 2020. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
  135. ^ "House Vote 251 – Approves New Abortion Restrictions". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 20, 2014. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
  136. ^ Frazin, Rachel (May 15, 2019). "GOP senator: Supreme Court abortion cases were 'wrongly decided as a constitutional matter'". The Hill. Archived from the original on August 15, 2020. Retrieved September 11, 2020.
  137. ^ Fearnow, Benjamin (May 19, 2020). "Republican Sen. Tom Cotton Says Life Begins at Conception, Fetus Has Constitutional Rights Protecting From Abortion". Newsweek. Archived from the original on September 11, 2020. Retrieved September 11, 2020.
  138. ^ "H.R.217 - Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act". United States Congress. 2013. Archived from the original on December 3, 2017. Retrieved December 3, 2017.
  139. ^ "Cotton Statement on Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Decision | U.S. Senator Cotton of Arkansas". Tom Cotton - Senator for Arkansas. Archived from the original on December 16, 2022. Retrieved June 24, 2022.
  140. ^ "Tom Cotton on Abortion". On the Issues. Archived from the original on December 3, 2017. Retrieved January 19, 2018.
  141. ^ Robertson, Lori (October 20, 2014). "Student Loan Stretching". FactCheck.org. Archived from the original on August 9, 2020. Retrieved April 17, 2020.
  142. ^ Cotton, Tom. "Cotton Statement on Violence at Capitol". Archived from the original on December 22, 2021. Retrieved March 29, 2022.
  143. ^ Lockwood, Frank E. (January 10, 2021). "Cotton holds to tweets on rioting; Capitol mobs deserve same justice as summer mobs, he says". Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Archived from the original on May 22, 2022. Retrieved March 29, 2022.
  144. ^ "Which senators supported a Jan. 6 Capitol riot commission". The Washington Post. May 28, 2021. Archived from the original on May 26, 2021. Retrieved May 29, 2021.
  145. ^ "After Sarah Palin's election loss, Sen. Tom Cotton calls ranked-choice voting 'a scam'". NBC News. September 2022. Archived from the original on December 21, 2022. Retrieved September 1, 2022.
  146. ^ Thomas, Alex (June 2, 2023). "Arkansas' senators split on debt limit bill approved by Senate". Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Retrieved June 18, 2023.
  147. ^ Folley, Aris (June 1, 2023). "Here are the senators who voted against the bill to raise the debt ceiling". The Hill. Retrieved June 17, 2023.
  148. ^ a b c Axelrod, Tal (May 14, 2019). "Cotton: US could win war with Iran in 'two strikes'". The Hill. Archived from the original on July 13, 2020. Retrieved May 18, 2019.
  149. ^ Willick, Jason (December 9–10, 2017). "A Foreign Policy for 'Jacksonian America'". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved August 5, 2018.(subscription required)
  150. ^ Mallin, Alexander (February 5, 2015). "Senator Says Gitmo Detainees 'Can Rot in Hell'". ABC News. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  151. ^ Friedersdorf, Conor (June 17, 2015). "These 21 Republicans Voted Against a Torture Ban". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on July 28, 2020. Retrieved July 28, 2020.
  152. ^ Ackerman, Spencer (November 30, 2017). "Interrogators Blast Trump's 'Clueless' CIA Pick Tom Cotton". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on August 9, 2020. Retrieved July 28, 2020.
  153. ^ Kheel, Rebecca (September 19, 2016). "GOP pressures Kerry on Russia's use of Iranian airbase". The Hill. Archived from the original on July 28, 2020. Retrieved February 11, 2019.
  154. ^ "U.S. Senate: U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 115th Congress - 1st Session". www.senate.gov. July 27, 2017. Archived from the original on January 13, 2018. Retrieved June 27, 2019.
  155. ^ Axelrod, Tal (December 19, 2018). "Senators call on Trump administration to reconsider Syria withdrawal". The Hill. Archived from the original on July 12, 2020. Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  156. ^ Carney, Jordain (January 15, 2019). "Senate advances measure bucking Trump on Russia sanctions". The Hill. Archived from the original on January 16, 2019. Retrieved January 15, 2019.
  157. ^ Cohen, Zachary; Warren, Michael (August 23, 2020). "Sen. Tom Cotton says he floated the idea of buying Greenland to Trump". CNN. Archived from the original on August 12, 2020. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  158. ^ Field, Hunter; Lockwood, Frank E. (August 22, 2019). "U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton backs buying Greenland, says he floated idea to Trump, Danish ambassador". Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Archived from the original on June 16, 2020. Retrieved August 23, 2019.
  159. ^ Sonmez, Felicia (August 22, 2019). "Sen. Tom Cotton says he mentioned buying Greenland to Trump, Danish ambassador". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on August 22, 2019. Retrieved August 22, 2019. The revelation came a day after President Trump called off a trip to Denmark because, he said, the country's leader was not interested in selling Greenland to the United States.
  160. ^ "Trump Takes Aim at the 'Open Skies' Cold War Treaty With Russia". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Archived from the original on June 30, 2020. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
  161. ^ Derby, Kevin. "Marco Rubio, Catherine Cortez Masto Take Aim at China in New Legislation". Sunshine State News. Archived from the original on July 28, 2019. Retrieved July 28, 2019.
  162. ^ "Chairs Lead Bipartisan Letter Urging Administration to Sanction Chinese Officials Complicit in Xinjiang Abuses". www.cecc.gov. Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC). August 29, 2018. Archived from the original on July 11, 2020. Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  163. ^ "China rejects US lawmakers' sanctions call over Muslim camps". Associated Press. August 30, 2018. Archived from the original on March 8, 2021. Retrieved February 28, 2019.
  164. ^ "Republican U.S. senators want Taiwan president to address Congress". Reuters. February 7, 2019. Archived from the original on July 27, 2019. Retrieved July 27, 2019.
  165. ^ Tillett, Emily (May 13, 2019). "Tom Cotton says sacrifice of Americans paying tariffs is "minimal" compared to those serving overseas". CBS News. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved July 16, 2019.
  166. ^ Ghosh, Nirmal (May 24, 2019). "US Bill reintroduced to deter China in South China, East China seas". The Straits Times. Archived from the original on July 14, 2020. Retrieved September 14, 2019.
  167. ^ Miller, Maggie (July 16, 2019). "Lawmakers introduce bill to block U.S. companies from doing business with Huawei". The Hill. Archived from the original on August 3, 2020. Retrieved July 16, 2019.
  168. ^ Re, Gregg (April 26, 2020). "Tom Cotton suggests Chinese students shouldn't be allowed to study sciences in the US". Fox News. Archived from the original on July 11, 2020. Retrieved April 27, 2020.
  169. ^ Bowden, John (April 26, 2020). "Cotton suggests US shouldn't give visas to Chinese students to study science". The Hill. Archived from the original on July 11, 2020. Retrieved April 27, 2020.
  170. ^ Duster, Chandelis; Jiang, Steven (August 10, 2020). "China sanctions Rubio, Cruz and other US officials for 'Hong Kong-related issues'". CNN. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
  171. ^ Chivvis, Christopher S.; Miller, Hannah (November 15, 2023). "The Role of Congress in U.S.-China Relations". Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
  172. ^ John McCormack (March 31, 2020). "The Senator who saw the Coronavirus Coming". National Review. Archived from the original on July 1, 2020. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
  173. ^ Tom Cotton. "letter" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on April 1, 2020. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
  174. ^ Natasha Bertrand (March 31, 2020). "From distraction to disaster: How coronavirus crept up on Washington". Politico. Archived from the original on July 9, 2020. Retrieved April 4, 2020.
  175. ^ Matthew Daly. "McConnell: Impeachment 'Diverted Attention' From Coronavirus". U.S. News & World Report. Archived from the original on April 1, 2020. Retrieved April 4, 2020.
  176. ^ Brewster, Jack (May 10, 2020). "A Timeline of the COVID-19 Wuhan Lab Origin Theory". Forbes. Archived from the original on February 17, 2021. Retrieved July 20, 2020.
  177. ^ a b Stevenson, Alexandra (February 18, 2020). "Senator Tom Cotton Repeats Fringe Theory of Coronavirus Origins". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on July 11, 2020. Retrieved July 11, 2020.
  178. ^ a b c Firozi, Paulina (February 17, 2020). "Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus conspiracy theory that was already debunked". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on July 16, 2020. Retrieved July 19, 2020. Yet Cotton acknowledged there is no evidence that the disease originated at the lab. Instead, he suggested it's necessary to ask Chinese authorities about the possibility
  179. ^ Halon, Yael (February 18, 2020). "Sen. Tom Cotton stands by startling theory on coronavirus origins: 'We need to be open to all possibilities'". Fox News. Archived from the original on July 28, 2020. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
  180. ^ Lockwood, Frank E. (May 30, 2021). "Cotton's theory on virus origin no longer dismissed". Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Archived from the original on June 2, 2021. Retrieved June 1, 2021.
  181. ^ Choi, David (March 12, 2020). "Republican senator: It's time to hold China 'accountable' for the coronavirus". Business Insider. Archived from the original on March 12, 2020. Retrieved March 13, 2020.
  182. ^ Sternlicht, Alexandra (April 26, 2020). "Cotton Ramps Up Anti-China Rhetoric, Says Chinese Students Should Be Banned From U.S." Forbes. Archived from the original on July 19, 2020. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
  183. ^ "Dr. Birx on whether coronavirus pandemic is being politicized". Fox News. April 25, 2020. Archived from the original on February 14, 2021. Retrieved February 9, 2021. But wherever it originated, Maria, we know that the Chinese Communist Party was both criminally negligent and incompetent at first, and then deliberately, deliberately malevolent in the way they responded to this virus, for their own people and the world. ... I believe that was a deliberate and conscious choice by the Chinese communist leadership [to keep borders open], because they didn't want to see their relative power and standing in the world decline because this virus was contained within China.
  184. ^ Sabes, Adam (February 28, 2023). "FBI director says COVID pandemic 'most likely' originated from Chinese lab". Fox News. Archived from the original on April 13, 2023. Retrieved March 6, 2023.
  185. ^ Collinson, Stephen (February 28, 2023). "Blinken's new warning to Beijing is the latest sign of deteriorating US-China relations". CNN. Archived from the original on April 13, 2023. Retrieved March 6, 2023.
  186. ^ Jacques, Ingrid. "COVID may have leaked out of a Chinese lab, after all. So much for 'misinformation.'". USA Today. Archived from the original on April 13, 2023. Retrieved March 6, 2023.
  187. ^ Levitz, Eric (July 19, 2017). "43 Senators Want to Make It a Federal Crime to Boycott Israeli Settlements". New York Intelligencer. Archived from the original on July 27, 2020. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
  188. ^ "Cosponsors - S.720 - 115th Congress (2017-2018): Israel Anti-Boycott Act". www.congress.gov. March 23, 2017. Archived from the original on June 21, 2020. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
  189. ^ Michaelson, Jay (July 21, 2017). "Pay No Mind to the Fake Ruckus About a Phony Israel Anti-Boycott Law". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on June 29, 2020. Retrieved April 17, 2020.
  190. ^ "Tom Cotton Says Israel Can 'Bounce The Rubble' In Gaza Amid Humanitarian Crisis". HuffPost. October 15, 2023.
  191. ^ "US right heats up inflammatory rhetoric on Palestine as Muslim groups worry". The Guardian. October 19, 2023.
  192. ^ "New York Times blasts Cotton for 'harvesting disinformation' about journalists in Middle East". The Hill. November 10, 2023.
  193. ^ Klippenstein, Ken (March 7, 2024). "Will Aaron Bushnell's Death Trigger Anarchism Witch Hunt?". The Intercept. Archived from the original on March 19, 2024. Retrieved April 24, 2024.
  194. ^ Berg, Matt (May 6, 2024). "'You have been warned': GOP senators caution ICC over Israeli arrest warrants". Politico. Retrieved May 7, 2024.
  195. ^ "The ICC is a kangaroo court and Karim Khan is a deranged fanatic. Woe to him and anyone who tries to enforce these outlaw warrants. Let me give them all a friendly reminder: the American law on the ICC is known as The Hague Invasion Act for a reason. Think about it". November 21, 2024.
  196. ^ Waldman, Paul (March 11, 2015). "For Tom Cotton, letter to Iran is anything but a 'fiasco'". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on December 2, 2017. Retrieved September 17, 2017.
  197. ^ Carter, Zach (March 17, 2015). "Here's Why Republicans Love Tom Cotton's Letter To Iran". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on October 28, 2018. Retrieved February 17, 2020.
  198. ^ Baker, Peter (March 9, 2015). "Angry White House and G.O.P. Senators Clash Over Letter to Iran". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved June 9, 2020.
  199. ^ "Sen. Tom Cotton's Farsi Version Of His Explosive Letter to Iranian Leaders Reads Like a Middle Schooler Wrote It". Foreign Policy. March 30, 2015. Archived from the original on August 2, 2016. Retrieved March 12, 2017.
  200. ^ Zeitz, Josh (March 12, 2015). "Iran, Tom Cotton and the Bizarre History of the Logan Act". Politico. Archived from the original on June 19, 2019. Retrieved June 18, 2019.
  201. ^ Waldman, Paul (March 9, 2015). "Republicans are beginning to act as though Barack Obama isn't even the president". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on August 7, 2017. Retrieved September 17, 2017.
  202. ^ Bump, Philip (March 9, 2015). "What an 18th century non-war with France has to do with the Senate's letter to Iran". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on July 25, 2015. Retrieved September 17, 2017.
  203. ^ Jaffe, Alexandra (March 11, 2015). "Obama, Iranian official slam GOP letter on deal". CNN. Archived from the original on March 11, 2015. Retrieved March 10, 2015.
  204. ^ "Obama mocks Republican letter to Iran over nuclear talks". BBC News. March 9, 2015. Archived from the original on August 13, 2018. Retrieved June 21, 2018.
  205. ^ Lavender, Paige (March 13, 2015). "Obama: 'I'm Embarrassed' For Republicans Who Sent Letter To Iran". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on May 1, 2017. Retrieved December 2, 2017.
  206. ^ Zarif, Javad (March 9, 2015). "Dr. Zarif's Response to the Letter of US Senators". Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Iran). Archived from the original on March 11, 2015. Retrieved March 10, 2015.
  207. ^ "Freshman GOP Senator Cotton says no regrets about letter warning Iran about Nuclear Deterrent". Fox News. March 15, 2015. Archived from the original on December 3, 2017. Retrieved December 2, 2017.
  208. ^ "Face the Nation: March 15 Kerry, Cotton, Manchin". CBS News. March 15, 2015. Archived from the original on December 3, 2017. Retrieved December 2, 2017.
  209. ^ Guion, Payton (March 16, 2015). "Tom Cotton, US Senator, apparently does not know the capital of Iran". The Independent. Archived from the original on December 3, 2017. Retrieved September 17, 2017.
  210. ^ "Tom Cotton: I want complete nuclear disarmament". MSNBC. March 15, 2015. Archived from the original on June 30, 2020. Retrieved February 17, 2020.
  211. ^ Lipton, Eric (April 4, 2015). "GOP's Israel support deepens as political contributions shift". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 8, 2015. Retrieved February 28, 2017.(subscription required)
  212. ^ Lockwood, Frank E. (July 20, 2018). "U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton's bill targets Iran over captives". Arkansas Democrat Gazette. Archived from the original on August 17, 2019. Retrieved August 17, 2019.
  213. ^ a b c Cotton: Russia will 'lie and deny' about British spy poisoning . 13 March 2018. The Hill. Retrieved 24 march 2020.
  214. ^ "Is Tom Cotton the Future of Trumpism?". The New Yorker. November 6, 2017. Archived from the original on April 26, 2020. Retrieved May 29, 2022.
  215. ^ a b "How Sen. Tom Cotton emerged as one of Trumpism's leading voices". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on January 20, 2021. Retrieved May 29, 2022.
  216. ^ Brantley, Max (March 17, 2014). "Tom Cotton still mum on marriage details". Arkansas Times. Archived from the original on February 3, 2019. Retrieved December 3, 2017.
  217. ^ Dovere, Edward-Isaac (May 5, 2017). "Tom Cotton has no problem with Donald Trump". Politico. Archived from the original on June 5, 2020. Retrieved June 5, 2020.
  218. ^ Takala, Rudy (June 27, 2016). "Tom Cotton: 'Deterrence, once lost, is very hard to regain'". The Washington Examiner. Archived from the original on August 6, 2020. Retrieved June 5, 2020.
  219. ^ "For Arlington's Old Guard, the mission is to honor, and the standard is perfection". PBS NewsHour. May 27, 2019. Archived from the original on January 20, 2021. Retrieved January 26, 2021.

Official

General information

U.S. House of Representatives
Preceded by Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Arkansas's 4th congressional district
2013–2015 		Succeeded by
Party political offices
Vacant
Title last held by
Tim Hutchinson 		Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Arkansas
(Class 2)
2014, 2020 		Most recent
Preceded by Chair of the Senate Republican Conference
Taking office 2025 		Designate
U.S. Senate
Preceded by U.S. Senator (Class 2) from Arkansas
2015–present
Served alongside: John Boozman 		Incumbent
Preceded by Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee
Taking office 2025 		Designate
Honorary titles
Preceded by Baby of the Senate
2015–2019 		Succeeded by
U.S. order of precedence (ceremonial)
Preceded by Order of precedence of the United States
as United States Senator 		Succeeded by
Preceded by United States senators by seniority
59th 		Succeeded by
Retrieved from "https://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Tom_Cotton&oldid=1265988329"