Sen. Tom Cotton compared the protests in Portland, Oregon, to the battle that sparked the Civil War.
Cotton, a Republican representing Arkansas, argued in a Tuesday morning interview on Fox & Friends that the nightly violent clashes between protesters and law enforcement officers are similar to the “insurrectionists” who led South Carolina to secede from the Union.
“The federal government cannot allow anarchists and insurrectionists [to] destroy federal courthouses, federal buildings, or other federal property,” he said. “These insurrectionists in the streets of Portland are little different from the insurrectionists who seceded from the Union in 1861 in South Carolina and tried to take over Fort Sumter.”
Cotton said the Trump administration, like President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, shouldn’t “stand for” it.
“And, just like President Lincoln wouldn’t stand for that, the federal government today cannot stand for the vandalism, the firebombing, or any attacks on federal property. It is right to send federal law enforcement in to defend federal property and federal facilities,” he said.
Federal law enforcement officials have been deployed to the city, and their presence and tactics have led to backlash among state and local officials.
Protests against police brutality and racial inequality have taken place in cities across the country following the death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody. One of the demands by some demonstrators is to “defund the police” in favor of reallocating funds to mental healthcare, affordable housing, and other services.
“The radical, left-wing mayor [of Portland], who’s basically in league with the defund the police anarchists on the street, have seen over 50 days of rioting and looting and anarchy in their streets. But, if you see something similar in other cities, where anarchists, insurrectionists are attacking courthouses, attacking federal buildings, attacking federal land and property, then, of course, the federal government has a responsibility to defend its installations and its property,” Cotton said.
