During an appearance on FNC’s “Hannity,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), once criticized for a New York Times op-ed recommending an aggressive posture regarding China, reacted to a Wall Street Journal report that the Biden administration now acknowledges culpability for the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Arkansas Republican said although he was accused of conspiracy-mongering, those on the left were the ones engaged in a “conspiracy of silence.”
“I think what unites both of these moments, whether it’s me pointing out before any of the shutdowns in America even happened that this virus almost certainly originated in a lab in Wuhan, not some food market there, and saying that we should use whatever law enforcement or military force is necessary to restore order when riders and looters are rampaging our streets are very closely connected,” he said. “The only conspiracy here was a conspiracy of silence among the left in America, whether it’s the liberal media that was trying to silence me and others making these basic points, or Democratic politicians like Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi saying we’re racist or nativist or xenophobic, and then you had MSNBC and CNN and all the rest piling on. And then you have people you know in the government like Tony Fauci, as you’re pointing out earlier, adding more fuel to this conspiracy of silence, trying to squelch all dissent about the party line.”
“And I want to remind everyone that both of these points were just basic common sense,” Cotton added. “Anyone could look at the facts on the ground in Wuhan and say this virus most likely came from that lab. What I said about deploying the national guard or active troops if necessary when local law enforcement was overwhelmed or not allowed to do its job again was supported by a majority of Americans. Yet when it doesn’t play into their ideological preconceptions, the left simply wants to silence all dissent.”
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