Tom Cotton offers Memorial Day message, discusses COVID lab leak concern
Tom Cotton offers Memorial Day message, discusses COVID lab leak concern
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Monday that as the media shifts from dismissing his earlier concerns the coronavirus may have leaked from a Wuhan lab to openly discussing the possibility, he feels a "sense of relief" that its true origins could be found.
"The only sense I have is a sense of relief that we're finally going to try to find the true origins of this virus and I think all the evidence points to those labs in Wuhan, and if we find out that's the origin of this virus, China really needs to pay," he said on "Fox & Friends."
Cotton responded to a sudden shift in the mainstream media's coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, after months of discarding the claim that the virus was the result of an escape or accident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. The Biden administration is now conducting an intelligence assessment of its origins.
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"The fact I was one of the first people to say it, and then President Trump said it as well, and let's just say most folks in the media don't care for our politics, so if it's coming from us, they immediately want to discount it," Cotton said.
"I don’t think that China’s going to reveal what happened in those labs anytime soon and they will continue to try to cover it up – and if that's the case it's reasonable for the American people to draw the conclusion that China is covering up an accident in those labs," he added.
Cotton also said in the interview he has received reports from current servicemembers about what he calls racist and Marxist training they are forced to undergo.
"Well [Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, and I] have heard from an increasing number of troops across the military who are very worried about the kind of really racist training that they’re getting, and training that says that certain races are inherently oppressed or oppressive," he said.
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Military enlistees are having to engage in training regimens that teach that "certain races are inherently privileged or certain races are victimized," Cotton said, adding that such a curriculum is "Marxist in its roots" and "hostile" to what U.S. soldiers are supposed to think, act and fight for.
Cotton, who also sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, added servicemembers should be trained to fight for America's founding ideals and documents and its way of life, not an extremist political ideology that runs counter to those values.
"Especially on this Memorial Day," he said. "when we’re remembering and expressing our love and gratitude for all of those service members who gave the ultimate sacrifice over the last 250 years for the defense of this country's freedom.
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"We want to make sure we’re teaching the next generation of our warriors that they should love this country, that this country is a good and noble place and they should stand arm-in-arm with their brothers to the left and right fighting for this country, irrespective of their race or creed or background."