U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK) speaks during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on global threats to American security, on Capitol Hill in Washington, USA, March 11, 2024.
Julia Nikhinson | Reuters
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ar., doubled down on earlier comments Tuesday by encouraging people stuck in traffic due to ceasefire protests to “take matters into their own hands” and forcibly remove protesters from the streets.
Cotton posted a video on X on Tuesday showing people dragging protesters off the streets by the legs and hoods of their jackets, throwing them onto the sidewalk to let cars pass.
“As it should be done,” the senator wrote in the post.
Traffic was blocked for hours on Monday on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and in major cities including Chicago, Seattle and New York as protesters took to the streets to draw attention to the war in Gaza.
“If something like that happened in Arkansas, on a bridge there, let’s just say I think there would be a lot of very wet criminals who would be thrown overboard not by law enforcement, but by the people whose way they’re blocking, ” Cotton said in an interview with Fox News on Monday.
“If they glued their hands to a car or the sidewalk, well, it would probably be pretty painful to have their skin ripped off, but I think that’s how we would handle it in Arkansas and I would encourage most people everywhere who get stuck behind criminals like this who are trying to block traffic to take matters into their own hands.”
The senator sparked controversy Monday night after taking that message to social media, again urging motorists blocked by protesters to “take matters into their own hands” in a post on X. Minutes later, Cotton updated that post, making clear that drivers should “take matters into their own hands to get them out of the way.”
Jon Favreau, a former speechwriter for President Barack Obama, was among the critics who hit Cotton on social media for his comments: “Just a US senator calling for vigilante violence.”
This type of rhetoric from Cotton has become routine for the Arkansas senator, who also faced backlash in 2020 for similar calls for violence in a New York Times op-ed. In the piece, Cotton called on the federal government to use the Insurrection Act to “send troops” against those protesting in response to the killing of George Floyd.
The essay sparked a barrage of criticism online, both against Cotton and the New York Times for deciding to publish it. Days later, then-New York Times opinion editor James Bennet resigned from his post.
Cotton’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.