Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas on Thursday said Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden would return the United States to a “weak and dangerous past.”
Mr. Cotton pointed to the comments from Robert Gates, the former Defense Secretary in the Obama administration who said Mr. Biden has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.
“Joe Biden opposed the mission to kill Osama bin Laden,” Mr. Cotton said on the final night of the Republican National Convention. “President Trump avenged the murder of hundreds of Americans by killing Iran’s terrorist mastermind, Qassem Soleimani.”
Mr. Cotton, who is up for re-election this year, said China is “rooting” for Mr. Biden to defeat Mr. Trump.
“Joe Biden said Chinese Communists aren’t even our competitor, aren’t ’bad folks’ - just months before they unleashed this plague on the world,” he said. “President Trump is clear-eyed about the Chinese threat, and he’s making China pay.”
“America’s other enemies won’t give up either,” Mr. Cotton said. “But Joe Biden would be as wrong and weak over the next four years as he has been for the last fifty.”
“We need a president who stands up for America - not one who takes a knee,” he said.
Mr. Cotton, an Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, also served in the U.S. House before he was first elected to the Senate in 2014.
His recent trip to New Hampshire, home of the first-in-the-nation presidential primaries, stoked speculation about his 2024 plans, though he tried to bat aside that talk earlier this week.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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