In 2020, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton told The New York Times that U.S. soldiers be deployed against U.S. citizens who protest.
On April 15, 2024, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) advised citizens to engage in violence against pro- Palestinian protesters who block traffic, denied he was advocating violence, and continued to advocate forcibly remove (violence) protesters instead of waiting for police.
Cotton promoted his criminal advice on Twitter where he slandered pro- Palestinian protesters as “pro-Hamas on April 15:
I encourage people who get stuck behind the pro-Hamas mobs blocking traffic: take matters into your own hands to get them out of the way.
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) April 16, 2024
It’s time to put an end to this nonsense.
Cotton also advocated violence on Fox News on April 16:
If something like this happened in Arkansas, on a bridge there, let’s just say I think there’d be a lot of very wet criminals that have been tossed overboard — not by law enforcement, but by the people whose road they’re blocking.
And if they glued their hands to a car or the pavement, well, it’d probably be pretty painful to have their skin ripped off, but I think that’s the way we’d handle in Arkansas.
Cotton continued to advocate his illegal advice, while denying he was, to NBC News on April 16 where he slandered pro- Palestinian protesters as “pro-Hamas vigilantes”:
Absolutely, I support people, if they’re blocked by traffic, by pro-Hamas vigilantes in the street, they should get out of their cars, they should move them to the side of the road, and they should let traffic continue. I’m saying that if people are trying to get to work or pick up their kids from school or take a sick kid to the doctor and you have pro-Hamas vigilantes blocking the streets, they should get out and move those people off the streets. The police will get there eventually. But a lot of damage will be done in the meantime.
(Sources: Tom Cotton/Twitter, NBC News, Fox News, Fox News/YouTube, The New York Times)