Cotton says GOP will gain ‘credibility’ at convention by ‘standing up against these rioters’

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Sen. Cotton on Democrats' lack of reasons to elect Biden

Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton shares thoughts on night 3 of the virtual DNC.

Sen. Tom Cotton said in an interview Tuesday that Republicans, at their convention this week, will gain "credibility" with voters by addressing the rioting and violence that has plagued many American cities -- after Democrats were criticized for largely ignoring that aspect of the unrest during their convention.

Cotton, R-Ark., is set to speak at the Republican National Convention (RNC) on Thursday -- the final and highest-profile night of the event -- and told Fox News that the GOP, by focusing on condemning the violence, will gain ground with voters who are "scared of rioters marching in the streets and some suburbs in the middle of the night" and want leaders to address the issue.

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"What's going to give the president and Republicans more credibility with voters across the country is that we're standing up against these rioters and looters," Cotton said. "I reject totally the use of the term protesters for people like we've seen in Kenosha, Wis., the last two nights, who are destroying cars and smashing cars and committing arson, setting fires in buildings."

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As in the wake of George Floyd's death in Minneapolis police custody, daytime protests have escalated at night into violent riots in Kenosha, Wis., following the shooting of Jacob Blake in the back by a police officer. Blake did not die from the gunshots, which were seemingly fired while he reached into his car while being pursued by police. Blake, however, was reportedly trying to break up a domestic dispute when police arrived on the scene. His three children were in his car.

"What happened in Kenosha needs to be investigated," Cotton told Fox News. "If misconduct occurred it ought to be held to account. But what can never be tolerated is violence we've seen in places like Kenosha the last couple nights and violence we've seen in places like Chicago and Portland and New York and Seattle and Washington for the last three months."

Cotton added: "This is in part a direct response to Democratic officials, mayors and governors who refuse to enforce their own laws and turn out the police, other law enforcement officials and the National Guard if necessary and sufficient forces to put down these riots. And the American people are scared of what they see."

Democrats, in their convention, emphasized their support for the Black Lives Matter movement and sought to seize on the momentum of protests over racial injustice that have brought fundraising windfalls to their causes since June. But they largely glossed over the actual violence that's sprung out of many of these protests, which some commentators have said is a potential political mistake.

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"I think that we may look back at the Democratic convention, if Donald Trump goes on to win reelection, and view Joe Biden's decision and the decision of the Democratic Party not to speak about the violence and riots that we see in these major cities as equivalent to the major political mistake of 2016 of Hillary Clinton never going to Wisconsin," Ben Domenech, the publisher of The Federalist, said on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday.

Also in the interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Cotton previewed some of the points he will make in his Thursday RNC address and addressed the potential effect of the coronavirus crisis on the presidential election.

"It reminds you of just how long Joe Biden has been in the swamp, one of his first votes when he was a new senator was to cut off aid to South Vietnam, which led directly to the evacuation of Americans from the rooftop of our embassy in Saigon," Cotton said of  Biden's foreign policy record. "Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, he cast repeated votes against almost every aircraft and ship and missile that we now take for granted as a way to defend Americans and project power around the world."

Cotton also lauded Trump for moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and helping to achieve a peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, despite the fact that Biden said moving the embassy "would mean that you never have peace in that place."

Biden campaign Rapid Response Director Andrew Bates shot back that at the RNC, Trump's allies are aiming to "distract" from the president's "mismanagement" of the coronavirus crisis.

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"Last week, voters heard about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' commitment to stand up for all Americans and their vision for overcoming this moment of crisis that Donald Trump's failed leadership has severely worsened -- by building back better with historic investments in American competitiveness and our middle class," Bates said. "What they will hear from Donald Trump this week are the last things our country needs: more desperate, wild-eyed lies and toxic division in vain attempts to distract from his mismanagement. What they won't hear is what American families have urgently needed and been forced to go without for over seven consecutive months: any coherent strategy for defeating the pandemic."

Cotton criticized Biden for initially denouncing President Trump's directive to close off travel from China at the beginning of the pandemic, and defended Trump's record on issues like the travel ban from China. But the U.S. under Trump's leadership still has the most coronavirus cases and deaths in the world and is 11th in the world in coronavirus deaths per capita -- much worse than countries like Japan, Taiwan, Finland and many others.

Asked how he could defend Trump's record on the coronavirus given the president's at-times-dismissive attitude toward the virus and the United States' coronavirus numbers compared with other countries -- Cotton was one of the first lawmakers in the U.S. to raise alarm about the coronavirus -- the senator responded that the virus "is not partisan." He laid the blame squarely at the feet of the Chinese government, which obscured the severity of the crisis in its early stages.

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"The only people responsible for this virus and its spread and the deaths and the harms caused are the Chinese Communist Party for letting what could have been a local health outbreak become a global pandemic," Cotton said. "This virus is highly contagious and it's highly dangerous for certain populations... and you can see that in the ebbing and the flowing of the virus in states across our country, it has nothing to do with whether a state is a Republican or Democratic state."

Cotton added: "Likewise, around the world. I mean, look at the European Union. Their cases have been dramatically increasing in recent weeks even though they have remained low through much of the summer. Until we have a vaccine... we just have to expect that the virus is going to continue to move through populations not just around the country, but around the world."

Cotton also encouraged people to "take every responsible step we can in terms of keeping our distance and wearing a mask and we can't stop practicing good hygiene."

Fox News' Talia Kaplan contributed to this report.