Sen. Tom Cotton, who during the Republican National Convention Monday night lauded GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump as a leader who "calls the enemy by its name" on Tuesday continued his call against political correctness when it comes to terror attacks.
"All of these attacks are terrorist attacks by radical Islamic jihadists," the Arkansas Republican told
Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. "It doesn't matter if they fly planes in the buildings or take a knife or an ax on a plane, they're inspired by groups like the Islamic State or al-Qaida.
"Frankly, I don't see much of a distinction between those two. First, the victims are just as dead and second, we didn't see many inspired attacks two years ago before the Islamic State rose to power."
On Tuesday, he also lauded fellow convention speaker Rudy Giuliani, after the former New York City mayor gave an impassioned speech about supporting the nation's law enforcement officers.
"I think it's important that any time there is a use of force by the police we don't jump to conclusions," said Cotton. "We let the investigation occur, we get the facts. We don't fan the flames of racial tensions too. Many political leaders do that today.
"What we need to do, especially in the wake of two assassinations of police officers, is support the law enforcement officers as they do the important job of keeping us safe on our streets."
And, as he believes that nobody embodies the "failed status quo of stale liberal ideas of the last 40 years" like Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton, there will be different message from the Republican Party this week: "It is a message of law and order that we're going to defend our safety on our streets and we'll defend our national security abroad."
"After eight years of Democratic and [President Barack] Obama budgets, our military is woefully underfunded," he continued. "We are having to borrow from training aircraft to make sure our planes fighting the Islamic State are able to stay in the skies.
"Our troops are barely getting the training they need before they go overseas which means we're robbing our investments in the future troops and that has to stop. In the Trump/Pence administration, our troops know that help is on the way."
Earlier in the morning, Cotton appeared on
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program with Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, who heads the GOP's platform committee, to discuss the first night of the convention.
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"The crowd came together," said Barrasso. "I think they liked the message,which is a conservative message of getting people back to work again. Jobs, the economy, national security."
And later in the morning, Barrasso, shifting over to Fox News'
"America's Newsroom," told that program that the GOP platform is a "good, solid Republican" plan that represents the grassroots views of people from around the country.
"It was acclaimed as a good, solid platform, focusing on the things that unite Republicans, [such as] jobs, the economy, national security," Barrasso said of the delegates' reaction. "National security is energy security, economic security, not just the borders. This is change versus more of the same. We cannot another four years like the last 8 years of Barack Obama."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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