Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton declared the United States safer under President Donald Trump than under his predecessor Barack Obama on Thursday and warned of returning to a “weak and dangerous past” if Democratic nominee Joe Biden is elected.
Cotton, whose opinion piece in The New York Times in June that urged Trump to send troops to quell rioting in U.S. cities resulted in the resignation of one of the paper’s editors, rattled off a list national security contrasts between Trump and Biden during a speech to the Republican National Convention.
“Joe Biden would return us to a weak and dangerous past,” Cotton said. “Barack Obama’s own secretary of defense [Robert Gates] said Joe Biden has been wrong on nearly every major national security decision over the past four decades.”
Cotton decried Biden for defense budget cuts, the Obama administration’s allowing of ISIS to gain control of an area in Syria and Iraq as large as Britain, and for Biden’s opposition to the mission that killed Sept. 11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden.
He praised Trump for rebuilding the military, leading a coalition that virtually eliminated ISIS and killing Iranian Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani.
Cotton further assailed the Iran nuclear deal negotiation by the Obama administration that “sent pallets of cash to the ayatollahs” while hailing Trump for withdrawing from the agreement.
Further contrasting the two on China, Cotton added: “We need a president who stands up for America, not one who takes a knee” – a possible swipe at athletes who have kneeled during the national anthem to protest what they consider “systemic racism” in law enforcement.
“A strong and proud America is a safe America,” Cotton said. “Safe from our enemies and safe from war.”
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