Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton had a terse response on Monday when Minority Leader Chuck Schumer noted he wasn't in the Senate eight years ago: "I was getting my a-- shot at in Afghanistan."
The heated exchange between the senators from opposite sides of the aisle stemmed from a promise Republicans said they obtained from Schumer to have Democrats bring President Donald Trump's CIA nominee Mike Pompeo to a vote on Friday along with Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis.
Republicans believed they had a deal with Schumer last week when they agreed to delay Pompeo's hearing by a day so Democrats scheduled to be be at both hearings wouldn't have to skip one, The Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes reported.
But only Kelly and Mattis were confirmed on Inauguration Day, and Cotton met Schumer on the Senate floor on Monday to call him out, Hayes reports.
When a group of Republicans, including Cotton, confronted Schumer, he responded that he had only been speaking for himself when he said he would not use procedural moves to delay Pompeo's vote, and not in his role as minority leader. What other Democrats decided to do was beyond his control, Schumer said.
Pompeo was confirmed on Monday, and video of that vote taken from CSPAN3 shows the heated confrontation between Cotton and Schumer.
Schumer told Cotton he should lower his voice and that the discussion should be taken into a hallway, Hayes reports.
"Schumer told Cotton that the Senate had never previously confirmed a CIA director on Inauguration Day and if Cotton had been around eight years earlier, he'd know that Republicans didn't extend that courtesy for incoming president Barack Obama," Hayes writes.
"Eight years ago, I was getting my a-- shot at in Afghanistan," Cotton responded. "So don't talk to me about where I was 8 years ago."
Cotton spent 2001-14 in the U.S. Army, seeing duty in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
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