On this weekend’s broadcast of FNC’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said he did not think continuing the National Guard presence near and around the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. was necessary.
He blamed the January 6 incident on a security failure by U.S. Capitol officials.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” he replied. “Look, I’m on the Senate Intelligence Committee. I have consulted with Senate leadership. I don’t — I’m not aware of threat reporting that suggests we need 7,000 troops and razor wire around the Capitol. What happened on January 6 was, in part, the failure of the senior security leaders on Capitol Hill to anticipate the kind of violence we saw from the mob that broke into the Capitol on the 6th. There was chatter about that on social media, yet they didn’t request enough backup from the FBI or the Park Police and the National Guard.”
“Muriel Bowser, the left-wing mayor of Washington, D.C., declined to let the National Guard that was present be armed and prepared for riot equipment,” Cotton continued. “Then we had a major reaction, one might say an overreaction, of bring 26,000 National Guard troops in for January 20’s inauguration. But the inauguration is behind us. These troops did a great job. I respect their service. They deployed on short notice. But it’s time to send home the troops. If there is threats, if the threat reporting warrants it, we can always bring troops back. But we don’t need to turn the people’s house, the center of our republic, into an armed camp.”
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