YouSaid · the spoken record

Tom Cotton

lines on the record: 76
first: 2017-06-05
most recent: 2017-06-05
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I'm preparing to run for reelection in 2020, and I suspect that Donald Trump will be our party's nominee in 2020 as well.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Most people, once they get elected to president, like during the job. So I expect Donald Trump will be not clear that he balls. That's why I.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now, so the doctor or other healthcare provider to continue saying an open-ended number of Medicaid enrollees. I think there's better ways to try to restrain the rate of growth of Medicaid without getting people into the situation where they have insurance but they don't have care. Giving the governors flexibility to have a small co-pay, for instance, or a small deductible, giving them the flexibility to have managed care, giving them the flexibility to use telemedicine. Those are all things that governors don't currently do that are being done in the private insurance markets. And I think we should let them do that. We should see what works.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the main reason is that it's such a huge part of most state government's budget, along with K through 12, higher education and prison.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, but Medicaid spending on a per beneficiary basis has been not just below the rate of medical inflation. It's been below the rate of core inflation for many years. We think that if we give governors and legislatures more flexibility, they'll have more tools than just cutting payments to doctors that we can even see higher quality care delivered at a better price for Medicaid beneficiaries. I mean, that's one of the core goals that we have of healthcare reform is to give governors more flexibility on Medicaid, give them more tools like managed care, for instance, that is very common in the private insurance market to restrain the rate of growth in Medicaid, but also continue to deliver affordable care.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So essentially, so we still have the traditional Medicaid program, which supports the traditional Medicaid populations, which no one disputes need that kind of support. The indigent elderly, the disabled, the blind, and so forth. Very important programs to help people have, say, developmental disabilities who are living in open homes. The expansion population, which oftentimes are able-bodied adults, they are not in that traditional Medicaid fee for service program. So the waiver that Arkansas got was to use that pot of money for the expansion population to put that group of people on the insurance market itself. Now, we just modified it to some degree. I say we, the governor and the legislature, the state of Arkansas. And that moved about 70,000 people off of Medicaid and into market insurance. Well, they'll have different options and they'll have a co-pay and so forth. That's the kind of flexibility.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I want everyone in Arkansas, like every American to have the chance to get affordable and quality insurance. We know that some people are not if we do something like repeal the individual mandate. That doesn't mean they quote unquote lose their insurance so much as some of them will choose not to buy their insurance. But if you want insurance and you want to buy it, I want it to be affordable and I want it to fit the needs of that person. One way that we can do that, and our governor in Arkansas stresses this, is by giving states a lot more flexibility and authority over their own Medicaid systems and then holding them to account as well, not letting them spend excessively the way some states have done. That doesn't mean that everybody who's on Medicaid today will stay on Medicaid in the long run. I think it's better that we move people off of Medicaid and into market-based insurance, whether that's the individual market.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, because they ultimately did what I had counseled them to do from the outset. House leadership introduced a bill on Monday night. They were going to start voting on it on Wednesday. And I said they really need to hit pause, take the time to assess all of its implications because healthcare is a very complicated area of law and not rush through a product that was half-baked. Now, there was a lot of drama for two or three weeks there. They ultimately had to pull that bill off of the floor. Congress went into recess. Deliberations continued. In the end, they spent about eight or nine weeks on it. And in my opinion, what they should have done from the very beginning. The House bill to start. The Senate will write her own bill. We'll see if we can get 50 votes to pass it. I hope we can, and I hope it improves our health care system.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, he said that he didn't have the votes now and he doesn't know how we're going to get to the votes. Now that's usually the case in a legislature. I'm very much focused on doing so. I thought the House had a false start that set them back a few yards and delayed the effort.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Famine, I don't know. Well, lots of people coming in and out. I mean, we've probably had half of this in it Republican caucus now in and out of the meeting. Some senators care more about certain issues on health care, so they're more apt to be there when the conversation turns to Medicaid or the insurance regulations and so forth. Look, Mitch McConnell has said it's going to be a tricky proposition. I mean, he actually cast out on the...”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm sceptical of that. I mean, I heard these complaints after we withdrew about how we're going to no longer become the world leader in solar power. I mean, the Paris Court simply didn't address that. I mean, if we're going to be the world leader in solar power, which I suspect we probably will, it's because we make a better product and a more affordable price. If you're making solar panels yesterday for your job, you're still making them today and your job is still going to rise or fall based on your company's ability to make a better solar panel and sell it, not whether or not the United States is in a non-binding voluntary agreement.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Essentially binding, essentially binding through moral and political pressure each year as we weren't able to hit the targets that President Obama had laid out that were much tougher than any other country's targets. And potentially legally binding through lawsuits under the Clean Air Act. And I think for those reasons, he made the right decision. He also stressed that we're going to continue to lead the world in environmental protection. But because of the cross-cutting issues that were outside the climate space as well, I wanted to give the president and his team the space they needed to make. But it is just a”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A lot of cross cutting issues that the president and his team needed to address beyond just the terms of the climate agreement. And I wanted to give the president and his team the space to address those. I think ultimately probably the right.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He showed in the campaign that he can be disciplined and focused, absolutely. Well, enough sparts to win. And again, if he's disciplined and focused like he was on his overseas trip, especially in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia and Israel, he's going to do well. That's not something specific to Donald Trump. That's kind of a lesson of life, a lesson of the military lesson of politics, being disciplined is a pretty important skill to have.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“jobs, wages, and security, to the extent that he's focused on all of the hair and fire, wild-eyed allegations and drama around these inquiries. He's going to do less well.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the president could be more focused and disciplined about staying on his agenda. I've communicated that publicly as well as privately to him. I mean, he won in the campaign because of his agenda. And he's going to succeed in office because of his agenda. I mean, it reminds me of what you said about the kickoff for Barack Obama's re-election campaign in your book. You know, there's some meeting. He comes in with this yellow legal payout. He's got a long list of issues like climate change and gay rights and immigration that he wants to address. And you have to tell him, it's like, Mr. President, I'm sure we all agree around this table, but we're still at 8% unemployment and down so many million jobs. You got elected to deliver on the economy and kitchen table issues. You're probably going to get re-elected by focusing on those as well. And as you said, he had gotten somewhat rusty and he'd gotten off focus on those. He got back on focus. And that's one main reason he won re-election. Donald Trump is going to do well if he's focused on things like”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm not sure I'd credit everything that Mr. Gorkov says. Not saying I'd discredit it, just saying that I recognize as someone who's close to Vladimir Putin and who himself went through the Russian security service training, I wouldn't credit everything he says in the news.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know all the details about him. I do not, I mean, that's kind of like the export-import bank in the United States, but he also has, I mean, the way most people who are in positions of influence do has a personal relationship with Vladimir Putin. So it's not surprising that heads of states and people with personal relationships to meet with the incoming advisors to the president. I mean, I'm sure you saw that some as well.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Jared Kushner has said that he wants to cooperate with the Senate Intelligence Committee and he's willing to turn over documents and interview. And I think we should do that and he should tell his side of the story. So I can't evaluate what was said in conversations and private meetings or on phone calls or what have you. But I can say that there's nothing out of the ordinary for foreign leaders to want to meet with an incoming administration.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Are the most important country in the world to every country in the world? Like the diplomat that represents every country in the world that serves in Washington is the most skilled, experienced, important diplomat they have. Our ambassador and their capital is the most important ambassador in their capital. And for many of these countries, their existence depends on their relationship with the United States, which is to say in no small part their relationship with the incoming president and his administration. So the meetings that Jared Kushner or Mike Flynn or any other member of the administration had are not out of the ordinary. Now, I can't say what happened in those meetings.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So it's not unusual. And especially in countries where personal relationships matter a lot for them to send those kind of personal emissaries. I've had some of those people who're not the foreign minister. They're not ambassador come to meet me shortly after the election, usually from allied countries, because they were looking for contacts inside Donald Trump's world because they didn't think it was going to win. They didn't develop those contacts. So that's not uncommon because, again, you have to remember something that it's easy for Americans to forget, even for Americans in Washington and government to forget.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the point being that it's completely normal for foreign leaders to be communicating, not just with President-elects and their teams, but with nominees. You probably saw this in 2008 in the middle of the campaign. There's a reason why all those ambassadors go to the RNC and the DNC, and it's not to hear the great rhetoric. It's to build relationships with one of the two sets of people who are going to be leading our government. It's hard to talk about that.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let me say farce as a general matter. There's nothing inappropriate about members of a transition meeting with representatives of a foreign government. I'm sure that you saw that happening in the transition in 2008 and 2009. Every ambassador and foreign minister probably wanted to make a trip to Chicago and come meet with Barack Obama or with Hillary Clinton or with the National Security Advisor or with you or anyone else. I mean, we have to remember.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He said things about Vladimir Putin that he ought not to have said and with which I don't agree. But Vladimir Putin, as an old KGB officer, knows to look beyond just what people say and to look what they do. And I'd say if you look at the first four months of the Trump administration, it's hard to say that Russia policy has done anything but gotten tougher. I mean, look at the airstrikes into Syria or what we're doing against Iran, one of Russia's main allies in the Middle East. Sanctions have not been lifted. Rex Tillerson and Jim Mattis and Nikki Haley have all said that we're going to stand with Ukraine until not just the Donbass has returned to Ukraine, but until Crimea is returned to them.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Those conclusions to see the basis on which they made them, both in the kind of raw intelligence that we've already reviewed, but also a lot of the basic correlation of forces between our two countries.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And Hillary Clinton in particular. And he felt slighted by Bill Clinton in the final months of the Clinton administration as well in 1999 and 2000. A third one was a clear preference for Donald Trump. It's possible. I'm still reviewing the evidence as is every other member of the intelligence community or intelligence committee as part of our review. And it's hard to disentangle those two motives. Helping Donald Trump versus hurting Hillary Clinton in our election system when it's a first past-the-post election. You do one, you necessarily tend to do the other. But I think there's sound reasons to think that someone in the Kremlin wouldn't want to elect Donald Trump. I mean, Donald Trump in the campaign, after all, was the one who was advocating more defense spending, accelerated nuclear modernization, expanded ballistic missile defense, more oil and gas production. Those are things that objectively are not in Russia's interest. So I want to talk to the analysts in the intelligence community.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So the intelligence community assessment didn't just identify Russian intelligence services or their affiliates as the ones who hacked those emails and released them. They also gave some reasons for it. Those reasons include a general effort to discredit Western democracy and American democracy in particular, an effort to pay back Hillary Clinton for some of the things she had said and done during her tenure as secretary of study.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've seen no evidence of that. And obviously the intelligence committee has a review underway and we'll follow the facts wherever they lead us. You know, we've done a lot of work already. We've done a lot of interviews. We have more coming. But Diane Feinstein was the senior Democrat on the committee until January. She's been the senior committee on the judiciary committee for the last five months, meaning that she oversees the FBI. And she said twice in the last month that she's seen no evidence of collusion or wrongdoing by Donald Trump or his associates.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Vladimir Putin was a KGB officer once a KGB officer, always a KGB officer. And remember that Russian intelligence services in particular, more so than even most intelligence services, have longstanding patterns going back to the Soviet Union days and the Tsarist days of disinformation, deception, manipulation”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have no reason to doubt the inclusion that it was Russian intelligence services or affiliated persons and organizations who hacked into the DNC and John Podesta's emails and released them.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And like I said, the EU has serious problems if you look at the divisions between North and South, by which I mostly mean between Germany and the South and between East and West. So Great Britain may in retrospect be seen to have gotten out by the getting was good.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As Teresa Maya said, ultimately it'll be in Britain's long term interest. It'll make Britain more globally minded and stronger to be able to chart their own course”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“On both of those, but in particular, the European one, since most of our country, or especially in Western Europe, at similar levels of development, I think the sentiment that the President rightly tapped that was also tapped in the Brexit campaign last year was the move away from traditional trade deals that lowered tariffs and quotas or subsidy systems or so forth, and into what you might call regulatory harmonization schemes. If you're a voter in Great Britain, it's understandable if you're going to reduce tariffs with countries around the world. What's less understandable is why unelected bureaucrats in Brussels get to dictate the size of your olive oil decanter on your table. To use one example that was common in the Brexit vote, I think that's the sentiment the present tapped into. It's also part of the sentiment that Hillary Clinton will...”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But you see, over the last 10 years, I think too little focus on Europe by American presidents. And you say that Europe has struggled a lot over 10 years, in part because as United States look to the Middle East, especially under George Bush, and then look to East Asia under Barack Obama, there wasn't that strong guiding hand in European politics to address some very real challenges that Europe faces, especially in its multilateral institutions like the European Union and the Euro. So I think it'd be better if we continue to play that organizing role. But some of these European leaders are going to have to get over their personal differences or differences in style and manner with our president.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, and ultimately, That's right. And ultimately, they don't have all that much choice but to work with us because of our economic mind and especially our military might. I mean, the next day after Chancellor Merkel said that, you kind of walked it back as well. I mean, maybe she was reminded how many tanks she has.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She should take more responsibility for Germany and their common defense, and she should take more responsibility for some of the problems that Europe has that have been driven in part by German policy over the last 10 or 12 years.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“$250,000. I mean, his manner, his style, his rhetoric, everything about him is more appealing to the European mind than Donald Trump. Almost everything about Donald Trump is just not appealing to the European mind. I mean, that doesn't mean that we don't have a strong relationship. That doesn't mean that our NATO alliance is strained. It does mean that they're going to have to find a ways to work with the person the American people elected to be their president.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With I know. But I mean, look at what Barack Obama when he traveled to Berlin in the summer of 2008. How many people turned out for him? I was there.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, that's what I heard from his speech last week. I think our European allies are on guard to hear whatever possible slight they can. I mean, because I think a lot of them just don't like Donald Trump. That's understandable. Leaders often don't like each other. I'm sure you could tell us some stories about Barack Obama not getting along well with foreign leaders. George Bush didn't get along well with foreign leaders. Our alliance is not built on national leaders though. Our alliance is built on our peoples and our strategic situation. And you can work through George Bush and Jacques Chirac, for instance, famously did not have the best personal relationship. But they had advisors and ministers who could work together to make sure that whatever personal antipathy they might have, the U.S., France relationship remained the same. Again, at a certain point, these European leaders...”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think they probably took the right action, but very quickly we had to provide them strategic airlift and refueling capabilities because so many European countries have taken a holiday from history over the last 25 years. So some of the things that the president said in the campaign were very much in keeping with both parties' views of NATO for the last 25 years, some of the things, like his questioning of Article 5 in the campaign I disagreed with. At this point, though, I don't think the president and the vice president and his cabinet can do much more to reassure our European allies that we stand by our commitments at a certain point, our European allies just are going to have to accept that Donald Trump is the president.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, contributing. I think that's misunderstood. Yeah, contributing to their own defense, it was a political commitment a little over a decade ago to say we're going to contribute 2% of our annual economic wealth to our common defense. And a lot of those, even though it's investment in your own national systems or soldiers or specifically designed to be interoperable, to face the challenges that we do from Russia or from terrorism or so forth. We want them to contribute the right way, not the Greece way by shrinking the denominator so their defense spend gets up to 2%. But it does have real consequences in our ability to project power. I mean, if you look in Libya, I mean, this was something where Europe led on the effort, but the United States had to provide much of the material support. Or Francis Foray into Mali in 2013, one of their old colonies where they still have deep ties and Islamic terrorism had spread.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The other way. So that's over $100 billion a year that's not being invested in our common defense. 10 aircraft carriers a year.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“NATO is a security alliance, is not a charitable organization. We don't belong to it because of humanitarian impulses. We belong to it because it's in our interest, part of our interest is to ensure that there's no single power that dominates the European continent and can use that dominance to threaten our position in the world. That's why we founded NATO. That's why Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis recently said if NATO didn't exist, we'd have to create something like it. I disagreed with some of the things that President Trump said in the campaign about NATO. Some of the things, though, are very consistent with what President Obama and President Bush and John McCain and other long-serving statesmen have said about in terms of encouraging the need for to contribute to our common defense. You know, in the Cold War, it was 50-50 Europe versus North America now to about 70-30.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And in a democracy in particular, statesmen have to be attuned to durable political support for any foreign policy. We're living in a time now, and I don't mean 2017, I mean the last 26, 27 years, in which our statesmen have struggled to do something that they've never done before in over 200 years of our history, which is to develop a peacetime strategy for global leadership. We've never had to do that before. In the founding era and in the Monroe system, which really lasted from the Monroe Doctrine up to World War I, we were able to coast in Great Britain's wake. And then we did not have a successful strategy, to say the least, during the interwar period. And then after World War II, we were able to develop a strategy for global leadership, but in a period of very heightened tensions, a Cold War that often termed hot. So since that ended, we've asked our statesmen to do something.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have our eyes open about that. One of the main arguments against going on the kind of Wilsonian nation building effort is the very plethora of opportunities you have to do so all around the world.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And David Petraeus, when he took over, said that it's going to be a very hard task, but hard is not impossible. I agree with that as well. And we made a lot of gains in Iraq in the years after I left after the surge. I came back to the United States from Iraq just a few weeks before George Bush lost the 2006 elections and then dumped the recommendations of the Iraq study group, which I was strongly opposed, but I was also surprised that he was he would strike out on his own, I think. In retrospect, we'll look back and say that was his fineest hour. But when President Obama withdrew all troops in 2011, it was not a Jeffersonian democracy. Was it stable? Was it largely representative? Did it largely have a monopoly on force? Yes. But it was not a Jeffersonian democracy the way the United States or Great Britain is. And it's probably going to be a long time before a lot of countries are around the world achieve that level of political development. And we have to...”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No planning whatsoever for any kind of follow on stabilization operation, nor that we were in the kind of dire straits given the threats that we faced in 2003 from Iraq that we were in 2011 in Libya. And that's another place that lives on. There's a long after party going on in Libya right now that the United States and especially Europe is still dealing with. And it's a society that's never had democratic governance. It's never had pluralism. It's still deeply tribal in the way a lot of those countries in that region of the world are.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We should be modest and tempered about our ability to remake the world in all cases. That's certainly something that I learned in Iraq and Afghanistan. And you can look at our own history or Great Britain's history to get to where we were today took many centuries of democratic development and the idea that countries that have been governed by tyranny or have descended into anarchy for decades or centuries are all of a sudden going to have Jeffersonian democracies is something that you should view with an appropriate degree of skepticism. That's one reason why, even though I wasn't in public office at the time, I did not support the airstrikes in Libya in 2011 because it was pretty clear to me that there was...”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I think there are certainly lessons to be drawn, both from the decision to go to war and especially the way the war was waged. But I think given where we were in late 2002 and early 2003, the attack that we had faced, what not only our intelligence services, but pretty much every Western intelligence service believed, I think George Bush made the responsible decision. Now, one lesson we should draw from that is to be more skeptical and probing about intelligence, especially when you're making a decision to go to war in part on that intelligence. And certainly there are lessons to be drawn about the way the war is conducted in the first three years. But I think looking back on it, given what was known at the time that George Bush made the responsible decision.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a hard question to ever answer. I mean, looking back on what I know now, I definitely would have sent the Pacific Fleet out of Pearl Harbor on December 6th. I mean, you don't get to live history in reverse. So you've got to take the measure of decisions of statesmen at the time they act and on the information on which they act.”
2017-06-05 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 153 - Sen. Tom Cotton · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source