>> Speaker 1: Introducing MyHoover. Through this new feature, you can now more easily follow the work of your favorite fellows and policy topics. Customize your newsfeed, manage newsletter subscriptions, and receive notifications when your favorite publications, broadcasts, and podcasts go live. Bookmark articles, essays, and multimedia for later viewing. Take the step to create a MyHoover account now and transform the way in which you acquire this valuable knowledge.
>> Peter Robinson: The barefoot boy from Arkansas who happens to be a Harvard man, Senator Tom Cotton on Uncommon Knowledge now. [MUSIC] >> Peter Robinson: Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge, I'm Peter Robinson. Thomas Bryant Cotton grew up on an Arkansas farm, earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard College and his JD from Harvard Law School. He served in the army, then went home.
He is now serving his second term in the United States Senate, where he is hosting me in the Hugh Scott room deep in the Capitol building. Senator, thank you. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Welcome, Peter, it's good to have you here. >> Peter Robinson: Senator Tom Cotton speaking at the commentary magazine dinner just a few days ago. And here you're speaking of the United States, Israel, and Hamas, quote, our countries are good and they are evil. As the Israelis have waged war on Hamas, a just war.
There have been civilian casualties in Gaza. What is the right way to think about those casualties? They're much in the press, of course, now. What is the right moral accounting for those casualties? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Those civilian casualties are squarely on the shoulders of Hamas. Just like the atrocities against Israelis on October 7, they're squarely on the shoulders of Hamas. The Israeli Defense Forces fight well within the laws of war.
In fact, they probably go further than any other military, maybe including ours, to avoid civilian casualties. But when Hamas hides its ammunition dumps, its command and control centers, not just in civilian and residential areas. But even inside schools and hospitals and mosques, we can't expect Israel to leave those valid military targets unharmed.
And I would point out that the United States did not go out of our way to distinguish between so called ordinary Germans and members of the National Socialist Party in Dresden. Or likewise, wring our hands about the firebombing of Tokyo on March 9th and 10th, 1945. Sometimes in war, there are civilian casualties. But as long as Israel is targeting valid military targets, any kind of civilian casualties are solely on the shoulders of Hamas, which uses those civilians as human shields.
>> Peter Robinson: All right, the attack takes place on October 7th, it's been about five weeks now as we record this. Israel suffers some 1,400 dead, they're now in Gaza. You receive intelligence briefings, you sit on the armed services committee. How is this war going, and how will we know when it's ended? What's the end state? Bibi Netanyahu says, we want to destroy Hamas. Presumably there are some limited number of known leaders of Hamas.
But then surely, it seems to me to be the kind of organization that shades off into supporters and fellow travelers. What's the end state? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, as we sit here today, Israel's war is progressing deliberately. They are conducting what you might call a cordon in search or a cordon in destroy. They have essentially cut the Gaza Strip in half by allowing civilians to move from the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
Where Hamas facilities and fighters are primarily located, to the southern part, and then establishing a cordon felt through the middle of Gaza. And then they've been moving deliberately on all sides through that northern part of the Gaza Strip. >> Peter Robinson: So is it right to think of this as house to house at this point? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: House to house or building to building, or for that matter, hospital to hospital.
At this moment, Israel appears to have the Al-Shifa hospital surrounded. And it's widely known, the Biden administration even acknowledges that Hamas uses the Al-Shifa hospital for command and control facilities and other military purposes. Now, Israel again is going above and beyond its responsibilities under the law of war to try to allow civilians to leave that hospital before they undertake any military operations.
That's exactly what the forces we supported did in Mosul against ISIS, which was also violating the law of war by using hospitals or other medical sites as military sites as well. We gave notice and a reasonable chance to evacuate. >> Peter Robinson: You served in the region yourself, in the army, on the ground, in the army. As I said, you received briefings, you know Israeli officials, the prime minister, you know military officials. You are satisfied that these are competent people.
These are among the best military in the world. What are we to make of our own administrations call for, I think the term they're using now is humanitarian pauses? Is a call for humanitarian pause part of an effort to prosecute a war or part of an effort to manipulate western public opinion?
>> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, I think the Biden administration's calls for humanitarian pauses or any other kind of language or notes or cautions of restraint, not only manage international public opinion, but the fissures in its own democratic party. There is a large, at least anti-Zionist element of the Democratic Party now. I think it's fair to call many of them anti Semitic or even pro Hamas.
If you see the marches and the rallies on student campuses, remember, those are all democratic voters, core parts of the Democratic Party. So I think that's what you see from the Biden administration. Again, we would have rejected calls for restraint or caution in October 2001 after the 911 attacks. We didn't sound those notes of restraint or caution after Pearl Harbor against Japan and Germany.
Israel should be held to the same standards we held ourselves to in World War II, or in Afghanistan after 911. And I do have confidence in the prime minister and the war cabinet he's put together. I think Israel has been preparing in various ways for what's happening now. And what has to happen, regrettably, is this war against Hamas to destroy its leadership and its ammunition dumps and its infrastructure, to prevent them, not just as a terrorist organization.
But as a governing entity and social movement from doing again what happened on October 7th. >> Peter Robinson: Our own involvement. We have two carrier groups in the eastern Mediterranean. When the Houthis fired rockets at Israel from Yemen, we shot them down. When Iranian backed proxies attacked bases in Syria and Iraq that Americans use, we have now begun to retaliate in Syria and Iraq. Where should we draw lines regarding our own involvement?
Ought we to say something along the lines of no American troops on the ground in this conflict ever? Or ought we to say, we will do whatever Israel needs us to do? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, we should back Israel to the hilt. Traditionally, since its modern founding, Israel has proudly insisted that it will defend Israel itself. And it has not asked for foreign troops. It has asked for aid, as has happened now, has happened during the Yom Kippur war, but it has not asked for foreign troops.
Now, you can envision a scenario if Hezbollah and Iran unleash everything they have against Israel, that they would need direct support, certainly from our air force and naval forces. But I do wanna say that Iran's attacks on our troops didn't just start after October 7th. This has been ongoing since Joe Biden took office.
At hearing earlier this year on the Armed Services Committee, the secretary of defense admitted under questioning from me that Iran and its proxies had attacked our forces over 80 times in the first two years. This is back- >> Peter Robinson: In February. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Yes. [INAUDIBLE] >> Tom Bryant Cotton: And we had only responded four times. So 80 to four is a pretty good record. >> Peter Robinson: What are they thinking? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, they're scared of escalation.
They're scared of having a broader fight when of course, Iran is the country that should be scared. Iran is a big country and it's got a decent military, but it pales in comparison to our military. And you've seen since October 7th, yes, we've now struck back a couple times against Iran, I should say against its proxies. All that does is validate Iran's proxy strategy, which it has used for 30 or 40 years to avoid responsibility for its attack on Americans and our allies.
So if you want to put an end to these attacks on Americans before we have a mass casualty event involving Americans, you have to convince the Ayatollahs that you're gonna do more than just strike their proxies. Especially their empty warehouses cuz Iran will fight to the last Arab. But once you start putting things at risk that they hold dear, like Ronald Reagan did in 1988 when he sank half of their navy, or Donald Trump did in 2020 when he killed Qasem Soleimani, their terrorist mastermind.
Iran is not deterred or scared of Joe Biden, Iran is emboldened by Joe Biden. >> Peter Robinson: So as I understand it, you'll correct me if I'm wrong, as I understand it, we have in the region pre-positioned, bunker busting bombs and the aircraft necessary to deliver them, is the time here? Are we reaching the moment when we should take out or at least seriously degrade?
We not hope that the Israelis get around to doing it, but we use those bunker busting bombs to attack those dispersed, deeply dug in Iranian nuclear facilities. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: I wouldn't prescribe a military option specifically, but until the Ayatollahs are afraid that Joe Biden will actually strike something they hold dear, not just expendable proxies in Iraq or Syria, then these attacks on Americans are gonna continue.
We can have all the bunker busting bombs, all the aircraft carrier, all the marine amphibs, all the nuclear submarines in the region but as long as the Ayatollahs think that Joe Biden is scared of escalation. Which they do based on his actions in the Middle East and also based on his actions in Ukraine, then these attacks are gonna continue.
If you remember Sean Connery's character in the Untouchables, Chicago Irish cop, Jim Malone, he explained to Kevin Costner's character, Elliot Ness, what it took to take on someone like Al Capone. They send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue. Until the Ayatollahs fear that, these attacks are gonna continue.
>> Peter Robinson: All right, you just mentioned Ukraine, you also mentioned the divide in the Democratic Party on Israel, Ukraine, and the divide in the Republican party, two quotations. Here's JD Vance, Republican senator of Ohio and a friend of yours. He's speaking in February just after the Russians invade Ukraine. Quote, I'm sick of Joe Biden focusing on the border of a country I don't care about while he lets the border of his own country become a total war zone, close quote.
Here's Senator Mitt Romney, another Republican, this past January. History has taught us that when one country feels it can invade another country with little consequence, we become vulnerable to being pulled into a conflict. Supporting Ukraine is not just the right thing to do, it's imperative for US national security. JD Vance, Mitt Romney, Tom Cotton. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, first off, I wanna contrast the divides in our two parties on these questions.
I think the mainstream media, of course, highlights Republican divides, but the divide over Ukraine, I would submit in the Republican Party is largely a matter of prudential judgment or practical reasoning. It is a reasonable position to take to say we can't keep spending $100 billion a year on Ukraine when we have a $2 trillion deficit.
It is reasonable to say that I wish our industrial base could produce enough weapons to support Ukraine and to deter China over a conflict in Taiwan, but we can't. I don't take those positions, but those are reasonable positions that are all about just practical reasoning about the circumstances. The divide in the Democratic party over Israel is a deep philosophical divide in which they've taken their views of gender and sex, and race and colonialism.
And superimposed it on the Middle East to the point where they're no longer able to distinguish the people who kill and behead babies. And the people who go out of their way to try to prevent civilian casualties while targeting the people who behead babies. So I wanna stress that the divisions in our parties over Ukraine and Israel are very, very different. In Ukraine, I support Ukraine and I don't support Joe Biden's Ukraine policy.
From the very beginning, he has pussy footed around and not provided Ukraine with the weapons that they need to fight and defend their own territory. That was true before the war started. His actions in 2021 tempted Vladimir Putin to do what Putin has always wanted to do, which is reassemble the constituent parts of the Russian empire, Ukraine being the most important.
And since the war started, he has had this approach of half measures that are timid and cautious, that he'll say no to one kind of weapon system, and three months later, he'll reverse himself while saying no to another and then reversing himself. That's why Ukraine has not made as much progress this year as we had hoped, because they gave Russia time to dig in defensive lines across eastern and southern Ukraine.
Before those lines were dug in last September and November, you saw that Ukraine was capable of major breakouts near Kharkiv and Kherson. And then once they started the fight against those lines, they didn't have things like Abrams tanks, they didn't have fighter aircraft, they didn't have long range artillery weapons that could hold all of Russia's forces at risk.
So, while I am deeply impressed and admire by the spirit and the bravery and the skill of the Ukrainian military fighting back against a much larger military in defense of its own homeland. The reason why they haven't been able to fight back as effectively as we might have hoped is because Joe Biden has once again acted like an elephant who's seen a mouse and jumped up on a table out of fear of escalation.
And the way to avoid escalation, typically, is not to manage it in exquisite, subtle fashion, it's to establish what's known as escalation dominance. >> Peter Robinson: Which means? Keep going, this is fascinating. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: As I said, with Iran, that Iran knows that you will do anything it takes to protect your people in the region or in Ukraine, to provide Ukraine with all the weapons it needs from the very beginning.
To make Vladimir Putin realize he has much more to lose on the battlefield than he does at the negotiating table. >> Peter Robinson: And the possession by Vladimir Putin of a nuclear weapon affects that calculus not at all? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: It does, it is not a situation we can easily tolerate when one country invades another country. And we have learned the lessons of history that if we stand by, let that kind of naked aggression continue, it only invites more of it.
Many Americans probably can't pick Ukraine off a map, but many Americans couldn't have picked Manchuria off a map in 1931 or Abyssinia off the map of 1935. Because the League of Nations stood by in Manchuria, because Great Britain stood by in Abyssinia. It emboldened people like Imperial Japan, like Nazi Germany. So there are costs to standing by, but you also have to take into account circumstances as well. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, we sent half a million troops and ejected him.
We haven't done that in Ukraine for a couple reasons. One, our interests were more deeply implicated. We couldn't allow a madman like Saddam Hussein to control the entire global flow of oil in the Middle East. Two, Saddam Hussein didn't have nuclear weapons and Russia does. So that does affect our calculation.
But there's been no indication at all that Russia has elevated its nuclear statuses, that it's considering using nuclear weapons, despite its occasional saber rattling, and even that has diminished over time. So every time Joe Biden has said, well, we're not gonna provide this kind of weapon or that kind of weapon or the other kind of weapon, in part because of fear of Russia has a nuclear power, and they might escalate, when we provide it three or six or nine months later, they don't escalate.
>> Peter Robinson: So I wanna move on to Taiwan in a moment but this is fascinating. So how does Ukraine end? Before the so called summer offensive, which turned out not to be much of an offensive by the Ukrainians. Before the summer offensive, the Russians had about a fifth of the Ukrainian territory, and afterwards they still hold about a fifth.
Suppose there were an armistice and something like the situation in Korea were put into effect, and four fifths of Ukraine became really tied to the west and became a democratic and market based economy and became a miracle in Eastern Europe, just as South Korea did in Asia. Wouldn't that be a good deal? Wouldn't that be a good outcome? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, I don't want to speculate about the terms of a negotiated settlement, which in the end we'll probably get to one way or another.
>> Peter Robinson: You do think that's where it's going. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: In the end. >> Peter Robinson: All right. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: And President Zelenskyy has said the same thing. It's ultimately up to him and the final say to the Ukrainian people, I think we should continue to support them in their effort to fight back against this war of naked aggression.
The best way to have the most favorable terms for American interests in a negotiated settlement, again, it's for Putin to believe he has more to lose on the battlefield than he does at the negotiating table. It's not for us to say to another sovereign nation what they should or should not do when they're resisting such aggression.
We didn't take that position, say, with Finland in the Winter War in 1939 and 1940, and they fought back valiantly and bravely against Soviet Russia in a way that few people expected them to with much less western support. They ended up ceding some territory but they also were largely safe from Russian aggression in the future cuz Russian leaders, having put their hand on that hot stove once, didn't wanna do it again.
So I don't think it's up for us to prescribe in the middle of the fighting what the terms of some kind of outcome should be. But the only way to get terms that are gonna be the most favorable to America's interests is to back Ukraine in its fight on the battlefield. >> Peter Robinson: On the battlefield. Taiwan, historian Niall Ferguson this past September, an amphibious invasion of Taiwan would be very difficult indeed for the Chinese to pull off.
However, a blockade of the island would be a different matter. And Niall went on to compare Taiwan today to Cuba, in the 1960s, the American attempt to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs failed. But during the Cuban missile crisis, we were able to blockade the island, although we use the term quarantine. And if China, Niall argues, were to blockade Taiwan, this time we would be in the role of the Russians, meaning supply lines across the Pacific Ocean, ships exposed to attack from the air.
Not a good situation to be in. How soon might a blockade happen? Niall Ferguson, quote, next January's, we're talking in November. Next January's Taiwanese election might furnish Beijing with a casus belli, close quote. That all sounds a little bit bracing, doesn't it? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Yes, well, first off, let me say for the record, contrary to Kennedy Hagiography, the Cuban missile crisis was an abject strategic defeat for the United States.
That Khrushchev was able to manufacture out of thin air an asset that he didn't previously have, these missiles in Cuba. And in return for giving up something he didn't have previously, he got our missiles out of Turkey and a promise never to again try to topple the Castro regime. >> Peter Robinson: You're the only man under 70 who sees that.
>> Tom Bryant Cotton: [LAUGH] And there's another difference between where we stood in Cuba in 1962 versus Taiwan now is that, which is why the Cuban missile crisis was such an abject feat. Is that we had a massive, massive advantage against Soviet Russia in 1962 in the correlation of forces, as the Russians like to say, both conventional forces and nuclear forces.
>> Peter Robinson: Are you gonna argue that Kennedy's performance in Vienna, when he met with Khrushchev, invited the Cuban missile crisis because he displayed weakness? Khrushchev thought he had a rich playboy he could push around. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Yes, but not only that, it was the failure in the Bay of Pigs to see things through in a couple months before Vienna, the abject failure in the Vienna summit where even Kennedy said he had been pushed around.
The subsequent failure of the Berlin wall being built without any pushback. And his failure in Vietnam, his early failure in Vietnam to protect American interest in Laos by basically just surrendering off the Soviet Union. So what you saw in the Cuban missile crisis- >> Peter Robinson: Your great theme is weakness is dangerous. Weakness is dangerous. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: So October of 1962, John F Kennedy had been in office for a little under two years.
Everything he had done up to that point in foreign policy was an abject failure, and it invited more Russian aggression. I would submit that basically everything Joe Biden has done in office has invited the aggression we've seen. That's why we have so many colossal failures. The collapse of Afghanistan in 2021, the invasion by Russia of Ukraine in 2022, the atrocity that Hamas committed against Israel just last month.
I'm fearful about what we might see in 2024 if Joe Biden continues to string and they're all connected as well. It's not a coincidence that Vladimir Putin began to mass troops on Ukraine's border just a few weeks after the collapse of Kabul. He saw a president who was weak and overmatched by events.
And it's not a coincidence that Iran, through its proxies, has continued all these attacks on America and emboldened Hamas to do what it's always wanted to do, which is massacre as many jews as possible. Because they see an America that is on the back foot and is more scared about escalation than it is establishing dominance against enemies who might try to escalate against us.
So do you see that the parallels in Kennedy's administration and by administration, and let's be honest, in every democratic administration, really going back to the post war period. >> Peter Robinson: Rafael Cohen, Director of the Strategy and Doctrine program at RAND, quote, for years, American defense strategy argued that the United States should have sufficient military capability and capacity to fight and win two simultaneous wars in different theaters.
Over the last decade, though, as America's military shrank in size and its adversaries grew increasingly capable, the Pentagon backed off such aspirations. All right, you were just discussing leadership, President Biden. This is related, but it's a separate question. It is our forces and our forces are designed to conduct operations in two theaters at best, Ukraine and North Atlantic, Taiwan and the Pacific, and now the Middle east and the Mediterranean. That makes three.
How dangerous is this moment? Are we already overstretched? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: It's very dangerous, and to be fair to Pentagon leaders, it's not that they chose to change our military strategy. It's that politicians, imposed on them a smaller military than the threats warranted, and therefore they were bowing to necessity. That's choice that has been made mostly by Democrats, some Republicans have aided them. But the military is a unique part of our budget.
And Ronald Reagan described this in a famous speech during his fights for bigger defense budgets in the early 1980s. You can't just look at the defense budget the way you look at other budgets and say, well, we need some savings. Let's just cut across the board, you have to assess the threats we face cuz our enemies get a vote.
So, our military alone is the part of our federal budget where you have to have a budget that matches your strategy based on the threats, not a strategy that matches your budget. So it has to come first and it has to be special compared to everything else. Once you have an adequate military budget, to counteract the threats we face, then you can look at your resources for any other issue.
And you may not be able to spend as much as you would on parks or roads or what have you because you have to work with the- >> Peter Robinson: Because the defense of the republic comes first. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: The defense of the country is the first and foundational responsibility of the federal government. Now facing that reality, one, I advocate for significantly larger defense budgets.
But in the meantime, we have to rely on European, NATO to care more about European security than it has in the past. Now, over the last two years, some countries have gotten more serious. We've added Finland, which is a big addition to NATO. We're gonna add Sweden, hopefully, which will be helpful, too. But the German people can't expect Americans continue to care more about German security than Germany does. >> Peter Robinson: Okay, so let's take Finland as one test case.
There is, as you well know, even within the Republican party, there are skeptics about NATO, as well as supporters such as yourself. Finland, it is a small country with an immense border with Russia. I don't know the numbers, but a thousand mile border with Russia and a tiny army, they join NATO and what do they get? They get us defending their border, what do we get?
>> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, I might turn it around and say, we get an 800 miles border that Russia has to defend, and- >> Peter Robinson: The aggressive turn of mind. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, I'd also recollect a joke from the Winter War, and if your viewers don't know much about the Winter War, they should read more about it.
It was one of those skirmishes in World War II that is often overlooked by the major campaigns like Germany's blitzkrieg into France or the Battle of Britain or the Normandy invasion. But in the winter of 1939 and 1940, Finland decimated the Soviet Russian army. I mean, the corpses were stacked up, frozen in the woods for months after that. And there's a joke that went around of two Finns that got stranded behind enemy lines.
And one looked over the berm they were using for cover and said to the other, I have bad news. And the second one said, what is it? And the first one said, there's an entire regiment of Russian troops. And the second one said, that is terrible news, it'll take all day long to bury them. So the Finns have an extraordinarily capable army, like a lot of other small countries who live in very dangerous neighborhoods, like Israel, for instance, or Singapore, the United Arab Emirates.
They have some of the largest reserve forces in all of Europe. Much of the adult population of the country is trained and ready to be mobilized if necessary. They have some of the largest artillery forces in all of Europe. They're a high tech economy, they're investing in fifth generation fighters like our F-35. So they had significant military capability, especially some of the other countries that we have admitted to NATO in recent years.
That's one of the reasons I supported it so strongly and tried to help midwife it before it even came to a vote in the Senate. Which was, I think, a 94 to one vote, to be fair. But Europe more broadly, not just the responsible nations, like Finland, like the United Kingdom, has to care as much about European security as we do. Because we know that they're not gonna do much, if anything, to help us if push comes to shove over Taiwan.
That's one reason it's so important that European NATO continue to build up its military. Now, even if Russia succeeds in Ukraine, Russia is still not going to be able, in all likelihood, to effectively target a NATO country for a few years, which is the window of maximum danger over Taiwan. But we need European NATO to carry more of the load for European security. >> Peter Robinson: Sold, sold, sold, when Donald Trump said it sold before then.
Olaf Scholz, the new chancellor of Germany when the Russians invaded Ukraine, he gave a very stirring speech in the Bundestag. Stirring because it was so shocking, he's a member of the Green Party, after all. And he had called for a major increase in German defense spending and an immediate. I don't know the term they used, we would have called it a supplemental outlay of something like €100 billion. They haven't spent €100 billion.
>> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, they haven't, I think in part- >> Peter Robinson: It's all fizzled, I would be very happy to drop you into Berlin and leave you there for six months. Until you talk them into doing what they've said they would do, what we've been telling them to do, how do you get them to do it? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, I wouldn't be too happy with that turn of affairs. Part of it is, you just have to make it clear they must do it.
In the debate we're having right now about support for Ukraine and Israel and Taiwan and border security. I think most Republicans are aligned around the position that we should continue security aid to Ukraine. But we need Europe to do more of the non-security aid of financial or economic aid. Our defense industry is unique in the world, it can support Ukraine in ways that not even advanced European defense industries can. But the cash checks for euros and Kyiv, just the way they cash dollars.
So until you force some European nations, not all like Finland or the UK, but some of them like Germany, frankly, they won't make that choice. But once they see that we are focusing our efforts and our investments on trying to prevent war in the Western Pacific. I think many of them will begin to take a more responsible position. Same way in the Middle East, we'll never be able to abandon the Middle East. It's too important to the World economy, we have too many friends there.
But it is a good thing that countries like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia is investing more in their defense capabilities. Hopefully more in their offensive capabilities, to deter Iran from striking those countries or striking Israel. Because, again, we can't count on any country in the Middle east to help us in the Western Pacific.
In the end, we have to have our primary focus in the Western Pacific to deter China from the most likely flashpoint, that would create a war between China and the United States, which is an effort to invade or embargo Taiwan. >> Peter Robinson: All right, our primary focus in the Western Pacific and Taiwan is the point of immediate concern. One more question about our armed forces. There's statistic after statistic about the decline of the United States.
We're now up to a budget deficit of 130% of GDP, and on and on it goes. Here's the one that I find in some ways the most disheartening. Cheer me up, take me out of it, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps. Last year, only the Marine Corps achieved its recruiting goals, and the army missed its recruiting goals for the 10th year in a roll. We have dangers, as I just said. In Europe, in the Middle East, in the Pacific. The United States army is 10% under-strength. How can this be?
>> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, unfortunately, I don't think the Biden administration gives many young Americans reason to join our military. They've engaged in social engineering, even politicization of our military over the last three years. I've heard from many people with whom I served in the army who've gotten out for that very reason.
I think they don't send the right message to young people that one of the best things you can do for your country as a teenager or someone in your 20s is spend a few years in the military. You don't have to make a lifetime commitment to it. You can serve two or three or five years, as I did. There are technical reasons that recruiters have a long pipeline where they start visiting high schools when they're allowed to.
And it's something the Biden administration has let too many schools and colleges get away with, not letting recruiters on campus. So we're still working kind of through the echo of the Corona virus shutdowns, when recruiters couldn't spend much time meeting and talking to sophomores who are now seniors in high school. There's other technical reasons about the medical record system.
Sometimes I think doctors who do medical exams on potential recruits get paid on commission for who they reject as opposed to trying to get them qualified. I mean, I'll tell a story about my experience. I'm partly color blind, I couldn't pass the color blindness test, so I would have been medically ineligible for the army. But I told the docs, look, I wanna serve. I'm not gonna fly a plane, I'm not gonna fly a helicopter. Be in the infantry, I can see red, white or red, green, and yellow.
So he took three push tacks off the board and held in his hand and said, tell me what colors they are. I told him, and he sighed, and he checked the pass box and he said, promise me you're never gonna shift to aviation. We need more people like that who wanna encourage people to serve. Now, if you have a serious problem, you can't serve. But if you had a knee injury when you played high school football and you went on to play college football, you should probably be able to serve in our army.
If you were on an antidepressant that some doctor prescribed when you were 14 as your parents were divorcing, you haven't shown any problems mentally since then, you should be allowed to serve. If you're a teenager that got in some trouble joyriding in a car that didn't belong to you, but you haven't shown any other legal trouble, you should be able to serve.
I mean, we need to do more to expand the pool of people who are willing to serve, and we have to explain to them what they get from service and why their country needs that service. Fortunately, this is, I think, a pretty easily reversible problem with a new president and secretary of defense. We had a lot of these exact same problems in the 1970s after Vietnam with Jimmy Carter in the White House. They all changed in the 1980s with Robin Reagan and Caspar Weinberger.
>> Peter Robinson: You sit on armed services. We've been talking about military matters. You also sit on the select committee on intelligence. May I just very briefly, you've heard this before, but it'll make me feel better. May I just very briefly go through a few of the points that any layman paying any attention to intelligence would have noticed over in recent years.
During the presidential campaign of 2020, 51 former intelligence officers signed a statement claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop represented Russian disinformation. They had no basis for saying so at the time. And now even the New York Times admits that the Hunter Biden laptop was genuine. And of those 51, who include Leon Panetta and John Brennan, former directors of the CIA, of those, 51, zero has retracted this statement, not one.
James Comey leaks his notes on a private conversation with the president of the United States, intentionally hoping to elicit a special investigation with Russian collusion. The FBI presents, we now know, doctored evidence that it knew was doctored to the FISA court on and on. Three years ago, Senator Tom Cotton said, wait a minute, this COVID virus may have escaped from the Wuhan Lab. You were denounced to crank conspiracy theory.
Three years later, the FBI says, actually, the preponderance of evidence suggests that it was a lab leak. But it took the FBI three years to say so. How can an American repose any trust in the intelligence operations of the United States, let alone, how can we suppose they're even competent at what they do, let alone repose real trust in these people?
>> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, unfortunately, the FBI in particular, but also intelligence agencies, have given the American people a lot of reason to doubt whether or not they deserve that confidence. >> Peter Robinson: I haven't even mentioned the FBI coming after so called traditional Catholics. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, so, [CROSSTALK] or parents who are protesting at school. So many of them, and especially in 2016, many of the problems resulted with the FBI.
So without substantial reform, and I would say clearing of the house at the top of the FBI. I don't think the American people can put that repose of confidence in them. >> Peter Robinson: Are you confident in them? Do you have the feeling that there's a large structure of good people doing good work and a few baddies on the top? Is it that simple? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: So I wouldn't just say it's just at the top, it's mostly in Washington.
Most of the FBI agents I know, people who are personal friends of mine or people with whom I served in the military. And when I'm serving the FBI or the agents I've met, as they've done tours in Arkansas, highly competent professional law enforcement. And they are some of the people who are most angered by what they have seen by people like Andrew McCabe or Jim Comey or Lisa Page or Peter Strzok, likewise with CIA officers. Look, they have differing political opinions, obviously.
You mentioned a lot of CIA officers who went on to unveil themselves as Democrats. I could point to many who were Republicans. To include my wife, who spent about 10 years working with the CIA. Makes me look like the milquetoast moderate in the family. But we shouldn't have a Democrat or Republican FBI or a Democrat or Republican CIA.
We should have a non-partisan CIA, non-partisan FBI that focuses on their mission for the FBI, law enforcement and counter-intelligence for the CIA, the collection of foreign intelligence. And those 51 former CIA or intelligence community officers, they ought not to have done those things, and they should have known better. But inside those agencies, and I see this, too, we cannot have political bias, especially political bias, in the way they do their job.
And it plays out not just in the partisan ways you line out, just the focus that we see on the intelligence committee, on whether or not some countries in Africa is gonna pass gay rights friendly legislation. If you tell me that that's gonna be a critical reason for why government stands or falls in a country that's aligned with America. Okay, that's foreign intelligence. If it's just something that Human Rights Watch might publish, it has no connection to foreign intelligence.
And we need a CIA that is focused on collecting foreign intelligence to help policymakers here in the Congress or the White House make decisions for the country. Just like the FBI, they need to focus on stopping criminals and stopping terrorists, not stopping parents going to school boards.
And which, again, there's things that we can do in Congress but what we really need is a new Republican president with new leadership at these agencies and departments who actually is focused on cleaning house where it belongs. And trying to set up permanent guardrails and culture that keeps them focused on their mission. >> Peter Robinson: All right, now to politics, because everything you said under the Biden administration, we've been conveying weakness, which is why we see the world on fire.
Our intelligence, our own armed forces, they need more money, they need recruiting, they need reestablishment of a sense of their purpose and morale. Intelligence can be turned around, but it needs to be turned around from the top, which of course brings us to politics. Politics is the way these things get done if they're going to get done. First question here is the old right versus the new right.
Although you are of the age of the new right, I happen to know that you're steeped in the old right of National Review Magazine and Commentary Magazine. Bill Buckley, Norman Podhoretz, these great figures who influenced me also influenced you because you started reading when you were 12 years old, as far as I can work it out. But then we've got something new, it seems to me, that wants to come into being. So we've got, Ross Douthat writes about zombie Reaganism.
This is the quotation he uses all the time, not all the time, but he's often talking about zombie Reaganism. Or Vivek Ramaswamy, in one of the debates, said to Mike Pence, it's not morning in America. We live in a dark moment and that we have to confront the fact that we're in an internal sort of cultural civil war, close quote. So you have seated across from you a Republican sort of a conservative dinosaur, trying to understand what is this new right that wants to come into being?
Is it just a difference in tone, does it simply want to fight harder? What is going on? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, if I can- >> Peter Robinson: What do you think? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: If I can again, I would like to point out that the divisions in that party, I think, are overshadowed by the divisions in the Democratic Party and how extreme the Democratic Party has become.
I mean, the activist wing of the Democratic Party, the people that you see marching on campuses today in favor of Hamas or that are organizing their political campaigns that are driving their conversation on social media are not just liberals or progressives. They're open Marxists, and you see a Democratic Party leadership, most consequentially, Joe Biden, which essentially capitulates to the Marxists in their party.
>> Peter Robinson: These people have no connection to the Democratic Party of FDR or Harry Truman or John Kennedy, correct? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Or even Bill Clinton. >> Peter Robinson: Or even Bill Clinton. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: I mean, consider some of the actions Bill Clinton took that has basically had him excommunicated from the Democratic Party pantheon.
So in our party, I would say that probably some of the voices in what you call the new right might be harking us back to a more faithful position of what you call the old right. Take a look at trade, probably one of Donald Trump's most consequential shifts in the Republican Party. We had moved in a direction at the end of the Cold War of free trade without any considerations for national security or reciprocity.
That is not really consistent with whoever the Republican Party had been historically. From its beginning, it was the party of the tariff and of protectionism for American businesses. Even Ronald Reagan took multiple actions to impose quotas or tariffs- >> Peter Robinson: Voluntary quotas. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: On things like motorcycles or steel or what have you. >> Peter Robinson: Right.
>> Tom Bryant Cotton: Over 20 years, our party had drifted, especially relative to China, in the direction that anything that we could do to get cheaper imports in this country would be better. That's not a good thing for our workers and producers. In the end, it's not a good thing, in some cases, for our national security. It's one thing, say, since we're coming up to the Christmas season, all the artificial Christmas trees in the world are made in China, that's one thing.
It's another thing if articles and goods that are critical for our safety or our health, our defense, like, say, basic pharmaceuticals, are made in China as well. So I think a lot of the voices that we hear in the so-called new right are kind of taking us back to where the old right- >> Peter Robinson: They're still working within the tradition.
>> Tom Bryant Cotton: I mean, I think some of them may not recognize that if they're not historically grounded in the traditions of our party going back to Lincoln and Coolidge and Taft and Reagan. But I think they are largely working within that tradition, and that's the American tradition of liberty and prosperity and security. >> Peter Robinson: Okay, which brings us to the specific politics of this moment in time.
We have Donald Trump with an enormous lead among Republicans, it looks like the very likely nominee. Who knows what happens in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina? Maybe Ron DeSantis, maybe Nikki Haley still have a chance, but he looks like the likely nominee. Notwithstanding that as recently as this past summer, a poll showed that more than half of Americans said they would refuse to vote for the man.
Here in the Senate, the last time your colleague, and I believe, your friend, Mitch McConnell presented himself to be elected leader, which he was, ten Republicans voted against him. On the other side of this building, over in the House, the Republican majority just took three weeks to elect a leader. Serious question, I think, I'm gonna try to make you believe it's a serious question. The GOP replaced the Whig party.
>> Tom Bryant Cotton: [LAUGH] >> Peter Robinson: Is it time for some new structure to replace the GOP? Can this party turn it around, or do you feel that these are death throes? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: No, I don't think we're in death throes. Obviously, we have divisions, and that's even more common when you're the party in opposition.
When you're the party in opposition, as we are now, as we were in the Obama and the Clinton eras, it's more common for these differences to come to the forefront because you don't have a president or a presidential nominee who's kind of setting the agenda for the party as a whole. >> Peter Robinson: Right, you're right. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: So I think you see more of it now than you saw under Reagan or either President Bush or President Trump.
And again, I would contrast this to the Democrats, who have a substantial Marxist element to their party, and not just in the economic sense of Marxism but also a kind of cultural Marxism that you see on our university campuses or in institutions- >> Peter Robinson: Almost Leninist, they want power. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Institutions of opinion, and in the way that they want power and want to impose it on people. I mean, why would you force a group of nuns to pay for birth control?
I don't think they understand what nuns do. They're forcing nuns to pay for birth control, but they have a certain element of their party that almost enjoys it. It's like a will to power over nuns or over parents who don't want their kids exposed to radical gender and race ideology in schools or what have you. So our party obviously has some disagreements internally, but I think what unites us all pales in contrast to what the Democrats want for this country.
And I know sometimes people say, there's not that much difference between the two parties in Washington. I can tell you, sitting here in this building, voting upstairs every day, and watching how the Democrats vote and watching how they would vote if they had a more sizable majority than they've had under the Biden administration. There's a vast gulf between what Democrats want for this country and what Republicans want for this country. >> Peter Robinson: So what can you do?
You passed up the chance to run for president this time around. What can you get done in the Senate, what good can you do right now in this moment? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, at the moment, I'm trying to make sure that we have a small increase in our defense spending. I'd like to see it be a big increase, but a small increase, at least, going into what I hope will be a Republican presidency in 2025 so we're not at a standing start.
Joe Biden, unlike Jimmy Carter, seems unwilling to make any kind of reversal of policy confronted with the failures of his foreign policy. Jimmy Carter was mugged by reality in Iran and Afghanistan in 1979. So he did have small increases in the defense budget in 1980 that helped get Ronald Reagan off to a running start. So that's one thing I'm focused on trying to impose some solution at the border that even if it doesn't stop the flow of migration, which is our final goal.
It at least substantially slows the flow of illegal migration right now because of what Joe Biden has done to open our border entirely to millions and millions of foreigners who have no right to be in this country. Now, those are relatively modest goals at a time when we have Democrats in control of the Senate and a Democrat in control of the White House.
Now, ultimately, of course, as you said, these things will be settled on the campaign trail and at the ballot box by the American people choosing a president and choosing which party should run the Senate and run the House. I personally hope they choose Republicans this time around and will work on behalf of that. >> Peter Robinson: Do you feel it? Do you feel that two years from now, there will be a President Trump, a majority in this chamber and a majority in that chamber?
>> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, I like our odds in the Senate. Joe Manchin just announced that he is retiring, and therefore, I feel pretty good about us picking. >> Peter Robinson: West Virginia. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: West Virginia, which puts us at a 50 50 Senate. And that means the Democrats.
>> Peter Robinson: Montana, Ohio. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, just to put it, if you look at it at the grand level, Democrats to hold on to the Senate will have to win Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Montana, Nevada, Arizona, and the White House. If they lose any one of those eight races, then we'll control the Senate [CROSSTALK]. I like our odds. >> Peter Robinson: The vice president.
>> Tom Bryant Cotton: They have to win all seven of those Senate races to keep it 50 50 and the White House to have the tie breaking vote. So I like our chances right now. I like our chances not just because I think we have a lot of good candidates, but because the American people are tired of the results Joe Biden has delivered. It's not just about his age, even though they have doubts about his ability to perform the job, it's the results. They see the chaos around the world.
They can barely afford groceries and gas or to pay the rent. They see crime rising in their streets, and they're ready for a different direction. >> Peter Robinson: The boy from Arkansas, two quotations. The first one comes from the 2022 edition of the Almanac of American Politics. Quote, Republican Tom Cotton of Arkansas has made no secret of his interest in running for president in 2024. Quotation two is Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas on November 7th, 2022 my boys are seven and five.
I'm pretty sure Republican voters can find another nominee, but I know that my sons can't find another dad. Regrets? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: No, none whatsoever. My wife and I closed the chapter on a White House run last year. Maybe the book has more chapters in the future, but at age seven and five, boys are old enough to know their dad is gone and old enough to be affected by it. But not really old enough to understand the sacrifice and why it might be worth it.
And in the meantime, I've taught them both to ride a bike and coached a flag football team and a few little league teams and enjoy the time we have together. And we don't have much time together before they get old and move on in the world. >> Peter Robinson: So you're that rare man who says when he wants to spend more time with his family, he really was telling the truth. Okay, let me take you through just another couple questions about you. What makes you think do behave the way you do?
You grew up as the 7th generation, if I have this correct, on an Arkansas farm. You go to Harvard. You go to Harvard law, you leave Harvard law to practice at a big time firm, you move to another big time firm. Son, you were on the golden road. And then after two years or so of practicing law, you said no and joined the army. And in going into the army, you said another no. I will not join the judge advocate general's corps. I will not continue to practice law in the army.
I'm joining the army to go into combat. And you spent five years in the army and earned the Bronze Star. You come out of the army and go to work for the consulting firm McKinsey, and it looks as though young Cotton, is coming back to his senses. And after a little over a year, you go home to Arkansas. You leave the glittering world of Washington and New York and Boston, and you go home to Arkansas and start a career in politics.
Senator, do you know the money you could be making if you were a partner in one of these big time Washington firms? And here you are raising these two boys on a government paycheck. So a serious question. What are the gratifications that you derive from the way you have chosen to lead your life that compensate, to put it bluntly, for the sheer levels of affluence you could have attained? I mean, Harvard, big time law partner. And you said no, why?
>> Tom Bryant Cotton: Well, there are a few things I think that are more gratifying than serving a great cause. And America is a great cause and always has been. And you talked about joining the army. The reason I did that was because of the 9/11 attacks. Our nation had been attacked, and we were at war. And I was young and able bodied and unmarried and had no kids or other responsibilities.
And I felt it was my duty to serve our country in a time of war, just like my dad had done willingly in the Vietnam era as well. And that America is worth fighting for. And though I wasn't raised in a political household, we were very patriotic, very traditional, conservative with the small c. And when your father served in the infantry in Vietnam and you're out on the farm with him every day and there's no one else there to do your work for you or take responsibility.
You learn a lot of important life lessons, I guess, move you in the direction of Ronald Reagan. Once I got a little bit older, I wasn't reading National Review or commentary at age 12. But maybe at age 18. >> Peter Robinson: Right. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: I'd say that I developed a deeper grounding by reading people like Norman Pothoritz or Bill Buckley or Harry Jaffa or going back to the original roots of things like the federalist papers and Abraham Lincoln. And America is worth fighting for.
It's worth doing it as a young man or woman in uniform, and it's worth doing it as you get older and serving our nation in other ways. >> Peter Robinson: Last question then, think back to, you were young when this happened. But think back to two decades. 1970s, inflation, the defeat in Vietnam, the humiliation of Watergate, the steady erosion of our position in the Cold War, the Iranian hostage crisis.
And then in the 1980s, economic recovery, rebuilding our military, re-establishment of national morale, mourning again in America. Reagan's reelection slogan, that may sound trite to us today, but it rang true enough to voters that they awarded him 49 out of 50 states. And from 1979 to 1989, one decade, we went from the Iranian hostage crisis and the soviet invasion of Afghanistan to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Is this country capable? There are indices that suggest we're weaker now.
When Reagan came in, the debt was 30% of GDP, now it's four times that. Family out of wedlock birth rate is way up by comparison with what it was 40 years ago. Does this country possess the moral and political resources to engage in another act of national self renewal? >> Tom Bryant Cotton: No question. >> Peter Robinson: No question. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: No question. >> Peter Robinson: No hesitation. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Of course, it's a different world today than it was in 1980.
You pointed out to some social and economic indicators. So we have challenges today that Reagan may not have faced, but he also had challenges that we don't face either. Soviet Russia was a different kind of challenge than Putin's Russia. They're both challenges, but different kind of challenges.
But I have no doubt that the genius and the patriotism of the American people, if harnessed and championed by the right political leaders, can see the same kind of national renewal that we had in the 1980s. It's always been a bad bet to bet against America. You might bet against some of America's political leaders over the centuries, but a bad bet to bet against the American people.
And what the American people want, I believe, is strength and confidence in their political leaders that America is worth fighting for. >> Peter Robinson: Senator Thomas Bryant Cotton of the great state of Arkansas, thank you. >> Tom Bryant Cotton: Thank you, Peter. >> Peter Robinson: I'm Peter Robinson for Uncommon Knowledge, the Hoover Institution and Fox Nation, thank you. [MUSIC]