Senator Tom Cotton joined me today to talk about the political violence erupting on the domestic left:

Audio:

09-25hhs-cotton

Transcript:

HH: Senator Cotton, welcome. How are you?

TC: I’m doing well, Hugh. I apologize for being a little bit late. I’m still trying to figure out the math on how the Guardians have won every game for the last six weeks while fielding a lineup that bats .220.

HH: My theory is that the baseball gods took a look at what the football gods have done to Cleveland for the last 26 years, and they’re just going to make it happen. No matter the emotional damage done to the Tigers.

TC: That’s a fair point.

HH: Yeah, it’s the only way. No other explanation. Senator, I want to talk about very serious stuff I talked about with Noah Rothman earlier – political violence. Because you were the first guy to peg the origin of the COVID virus in the Wuhan lab, I’m going to look for the origin of the political violence we’re going through. But first, I want to categorize it either as left-wing, right-wing, insanity-driven, or Islamist. What do you think about the assassination of Charlie Kirk – left-wing, right-wing, insanity, or Islamist?

TC: I mean, obvious left-wing violence in the assassination of Charlie Kirk. You’ve had a young man who his own parents had said that his political views had moved to the left. The governor of Utah, no partisan gunslinger, had said the same thing. And you can just tell by what he wrote online or even on the bullet casings that he used, that he was a left-wing assailant, and a center-right victim who was targeted for his political views.

HH: All right, the assassination attempts, both of them on President Trump.

TC: As far as we know, again, left-wing violence targeting a center-right politician while he was running for office. It seems to be a clear-cut case.

HH: Justice Kavanaugh?

TC: Again, no question. You had a left-wing hitman who flew all the way in from California who had the tools and the equipment necessary for breaking and entering, and kidnapping. Again, and in all these cases, they show the kind of malice of forethought and premeditated planning that belie any claims that these were just lunatics or schizophrenics.

HH: Congressional baseball practice where the GOP Caucus was assaulted in 2017?

TC: Again, Hugh, a Bernie Sanders supporter who intentionally sought, planned, and sought out a site where you would have multiple Republican officials. And thankfully, Hugh, Steve Scalise at the time, who was then the elected leadership of the House and therefore had a security detail, you had Capitol Police officers who bravely neutralized that threat. Just imagine what it would have been like in 2017 if they hadn’t had that Capitol Police security detail there by happenstance.

HH: How about the murderous attack on the religious school – Catholic in Minneapolis, Evangelical in Nashville?

TC: Hugh, from everything we can tell, they seem to be left-wing ideological violence by self-identified transgender persons against Bible-believing Christians. I mean, in those cases, maybe they had some kind of affiliations with the school.

HH: We’ve got some three attacks on ICE facilities, the most recent being yesterday. Do you have opinions on all or any of them?

TC: You know, Hugh, I haven’t seen the latest reporting on them. I know the one in Dallas, there were shell casings found that were specifically targeted, with anti-ICE messaging. And just generally speaking, I mean, why would anyone be targeting an ICE facility if they weren’t ideologically opposed from the left to immigration enforcement?

HH: I agree. The shooting into the ABC studio following, in Sacramento, following the cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel?

TC: Don’t have enough information on that one, Hugh.

HH: It’s pretty easy. He was a left-wing advocate for the California Teachers Association, and when you dig in, you’ll find he’s a very political person. I am a little confused on the country club shooting in New Hampshire, because the details are foggy. Do you have better information than I do on that one?

TC: I don’t, Hugh. Not enough information, no.

HH: And there was an attempted bombing of a Fox News van, which I have no idea. Do you have any better information on that?

TC: I don’t. No, Hugh. And I do think, like the fact that you and I both are saying that on some of these cases, we simply don’t know enough information, it is important in any of these moments not to jump to conclusions and wait until all the facts are ascertained. But once we know the facts, I think it’s important to call these acts of violence what they are.

HH: Now I’m going to stipulate, though, the 1/6 riot is right-wing violence. The attempt to kidnap Governor Whitmer, a Democrat in Michigan, is right-wing violence. They’re not Republicans, and they’re not mainstream. They’re radical right and racist, in some cases. The murder of the Hortman’s in Minnesota appears to be mental illness, although it was presented as right-wing violence. But that guy is not dealing with a full deck.

TC: Yes. I think it’s, yeah.

HH: How do you categorize, and how do you categorize the riots after George Floyd’s death?

TC: Well, those were explicitly left-wing activists who were rioting and burning down American cities over supposed social justice claims. Hugh, if I could go back to the ones you kind of moved through quickly, the riot on January 6th was bad. But you had a large rally, a massive rally in which a small minority got caught up in the spirit of the mob, which is a bad thing. It’s why you should avoid the mob spirit. And then a minority of those committed acts of violence.

HH: Correct.

TC: But again, that is different, being caught up in a mob spirit in the moment than deliberately, and with premeditation, planning the murder of a president or a conservative activist or a Supreme Court justice. Even, Hugh, in Michigan, you had a bunch of guys who actually were not planning, as far as we can tell, from taking any kind of action, who were treated by FBI informants to engage in a conspiracy against the governor of Michigan. There were no overt actions taken. That’s why they were brought up on conspiracy charges, which again, is different from what it appears happened in Utah – the deliberate, premediated, planned assassination of a center-right public figure.

HH: Now the Antifa violence that has racked Portland, Seattle, President Trump’s first inauguration, that’s all left-wing anarchist violence. And it’s not even worth debating, right? It’s just left-wing anarchist violence.

TC: Yeah, of course. Obviously. Yeah.

HH: So with all those things, number one, have you seen any major news media attempt to categorize and explain the cycle of violence that we’re in?

TC: Well, I mean, most of the mainstream media, which is to say the liberal media, wants to equivocate and say oh, this is a ‘both sides’ problem, when as we’ve just demonstrated, it really isn’t a ‘both sides’ problem. One that we missed, Hugh, was the arson at the Governor’s mansion in Pennsylvania.

HH: Oh, you’re right.

TC: An awful act of violence against a Democratic governor perpetrated by a left-wing, pro-Hamas zealot who thought the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania was too pro-Israel. So yet again, even though it was against a Democratic politician, it’s an example of left-wing violence. That’s why I say that political violence today in America is almost exclusively left-wing violence.

HH: So now the hard question. You did guess. You reasoned to the Wuhan lap as the origin story before anybody else during COVID. You were first on the record. Maybe one of your first appearances on this show, you put that theory forward. What’s the origin story for this cycle of left-wing violence? What is causing it?

TC: Hugh, you know, I haven’t been able to pin it down to one thing, and it may not be one thing. I will say, though, that it is a return to a long, historical pattern of left-wing violence. This didn’t just happen recently. I mean, think about the Weather Underground in the 1960s, and the SDS and some of the bombings on campuses, for instance. You can even go, I mean, you can go back to the French Revolution, Hugh.

HH: Yeah.

TC: And come forward through the Russian Revolution. And there’s just a long history of the political left around the world, to include here in America, using violence to obtain their political ends, what they can’t obtain through the ballot box.

HH: So is any media organization from the legacy side going to do a deep dive and attempt to categorize and follow…the academic stuff is nonsense. They make up categories that don’t exist. There’s, and in fact, I’ll give you the five choices. Almost exclusively left-wing, mostly left-wing, evenly divided mostly right-wing, almost exclusively right-wing. What are we talking about here?

TC: I’m sorry, Hugh. Can you say that again?

HH: Yeah, there are five choices. All the political violence since 2016 has been almost exclusively left-wing, mostly left-wing, evenly divided, mostly right-wing, almost exclusively right-wing.

TC: Almost exclusively left-wing, and that’s why the liberal media is trying to efface that reality and say this is a ‘both sides’ problem.

HH: I think you’re right. Is anyone going to change that, do you think? We’ve got 30 seconds.

TC: Well, you and I have done what little we can. I think the President is doing what he can as well, that if there are networks of funding and support and training behind these acts of violence, then they need to be held accountable under criminal law.

HH: I hope you are right. Senator Tom Cotton, always a pleasure to talk to you.

End of interview.