Sen. Tom Cotton, while decrying "woke culture" told attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference Friday that when "America is under assault and conservatives are under attack," conservatives will never surrender and will always defend the United States.
The Arkansas Republican also slammed leaders in Washington, D.C., saying that for the first time, CPAC has had to move its annual conference because even though coronavirus cases are plummeting and vaccination rates are rising, "we are still banned from getting anywhere near our nation's capital."
"Contrast that with what happened last summer with the BLM (Black Lives Matter) protesters," said Cotton. "Thousands of people in the streets and cases were surging. Did the Democratic politicians try to lock that down? No, they went out and marched with them. Now maybe if CPAC had promised to burn down buildings and tear down statues, they would've let us be there."
The contrast, he said, "strikes at the heart of our freedom, that your rights may depend on what you say, what you believe, the color of your skin, that's the opposite of freedom."
He warned that conservatives are constantly at risk of being under attack by the left, and that's because liberals have failed to heed President Ronald Reagan's final address warnings and have lost what he called the "unambivalent appreciation of America," and now they believe it "needs to be burned to the ground."
He also noted that he argued in The New York Times that troops are needed when the police can't restore orders, and the newspaper had a "total meltdown" and apologized.
"That's one time I actually agree with The New York Times, my work did not meet their standards," said Cotton. "I exceeded their lousy standards. Some people on the left even called for me to apologize. So let me say again, I will never apologize for defending America."
Cotton also railed against President Joe Biden's stance on immigration.
"They want to give amnesty to 15-20 million illegal aliens with no strings attached, with voting rights, presumably in times where they will be voting for Kamala Harris' reelection campaign," said Cotton. "Of course you can't fly into America without a coronavirus test, but you can cross the border without one."
And immigrants who "obeyed our laws and came here the right way" support Trump and the United States, and "we need that kind of simple unambivalent, unashamed patriotism," said Cotton. "These radical liberals, they want to erase our history."
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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