Sen. Tom Cotton says U.S. needs to "get tough on crime" following Paul Pelosi attack
Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton said "we need to crack down" and "get tough on crime" in the U.S., following the attack last week on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
"The answer to all of these crimes is to get tough on crime and throw the book at these criminals," Cotton said on "CBS Mornings."
He added that "we should throw the book" at the assailant in the Pelosi attack.
David Wayne DePape, 42, is accused of breaking into the Pelosi home in San Francisco last week and violently attacking Paul Pelosi, as well as intending to kidnap Nancy Pelosi and possibly break "her kneecaps," according to court documents.
The senator described the attack as a "terrible crime" and wished Paul Pelosi "the very best and a full recovery." On Monday, Nancy Pelosi said her husband is "making steady progress on what will be a long recovery process."
Cotton did not tie increasingly heated political rhetoric to violent crime.
"The simplest way to stop crime like this is to get tough on crime. It's not to try to stop campaigning in the middle of a campaign, seven days before an election, on legitimate issue of public concern,"he said.
He also said, "You see deranged lunatics attack both Democrats and Republicans alike," and mentioned the alleged attempt by 26-year-old Nicholas John Roske in June to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Cotton also pushed for what he described as a recovery of the country from "the left's ideological ambitions." In his new book, titled "Only the Strong," Cotton argues that those aligned with the progressive left are intentionally plotting against America to weaken the country.
"At best, these progressives are ambivalent about America and they're openly hostile to American power," he said. "That's why you see them undermining the foundation of American power."
He said he hopes the book can "arrest the decline we've seen under Barack Obama and now Joe Biden."
"One reason I wanted to lay out this book though is to explain to our fellow Americans what it would take to turn around our country, what it would take to restore American power," he said.
