Cotton: I Worry More Americans Will Die If We Don’t Take the Fight to the Islamic State

Monday on CNN’s “The Lead,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said after his Sunday night address, expressed his concerns about President Barack Obama’s leadership in taking on the Islamic State and what that might mean to the security of Americans.

Cotton said, “Well, the president seems to be a wartime president who doesn’t realize it. While we’ve got 14 dead Americans at the hands of Islamic state adherence, the president wanted to lecture us about ineffective gun control measures and on political correctness. What we heard last night was just the president’s going to continue with more of the same failed strategy that hasn’t been working to date. and doubling down on that strategy is not going to do anything now. And I worry that more Americans are going to die if we don’t take the fight to the Islamic State.”

He added, “We should take a much closer look at the way we emit persons into this country. For instance, the woman in San Bernardino who’s responsible for 14 of these murders was let into the country on a so-called fiancee visa. We need to study that more carefully. We also allow countries — or people from dozens of countries around the world to come here without a visa, everyone though some of those countries have been the source of terrorist attackers in Europe and in the Middle East. We also need to take a serious look at the Syrian refugee program as well. President Obama has been very stubborn on all of these programs. He’s not been willing to negotiate with congress over common sense measures that will give the American people the confidence that we’re not letting Islamic State or al Qaeda sleepers into this country to attack Americans. I think that’s very regrettable.”

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