Tom Cotton on President Zelensky's address - March 16th, Hour 3
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We had uh President Zelensky addressing uh the both both chambers, the House and the Senate earlier today, and he made the comment and he called on President Biden to be the leader of the world and be the leader of peace.
And here's what he said.
Now I'm almost forty-five years old.
Today my age stopped.
When the cars of more than one hundred children stop vacing.
I see no sense in life if it cannot stop the deaths.
And this is my main nation and the leader of my people.
Great Ukrainians.
And as the leader of my niece, I'm addressing the President Biden.
You are the leader of the niche of the Ukrainian nation.
I wish you to be the leader of the world.
Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.
Thank you.
Bravo Crazy.
If you're the leader of the world, that means you gotta be the leader of peace.
Now uh joining us is Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
He himself a veteran, serves on several very important committees, the Judiciary Committee, where he serves as the ranking member for the subcommittee on on criminal justice, counterterrorism, and on the Intel Committee and the Armed Services Committee, where he serves as the ranking member of the Air Land Power Subcommittee.
Um first let me get your reaction to Zelensky's address and the video that he played, which I thought was extraordinarily powerful.
Um your thoughts.
Well, thanks for having me on, Sean.
Uh first, um, I know that's been a tough few days for for you and everyone in the Fox News family, with the death of Pierre and Sasha, the cameraman and interpreter that was with Benji Hall.
So on behalf of all our Kansans, uh Anna and I want to say that we're praying for you all and we're certainly pulling for Benji to get through and make it repeat.
You have no idea.
It means a lot to all of us.
And I will tell you there's a there are a lot of broken hearts where we're our work at night.
I'm telling you right now, these are great people.
Yeah, yeah, I understand.
Um, but uh they are are just one more group of innocent civilian victims in this brutal war of aggression that Vladimir Putin has unleashed on Ukraine.
And President Zelensky was inspiring um and uplifting and resolute in his remarks today.
Um that video he played reminds me of something one of my old sergeants used to say.
War is not hell.
War is worse than hell.
Only the condemned suffer in hell, but war condemns the innocent.
If you watch that video, I would ask you, what weapons should we deny to the Ukrainian army and people to protect the innocent?
I I think what you're saying is extraordinarily profound here.
Now, I think we've learned in the last 20 years in particular, that we we've got to be very careful before we ever put one American life in danger again.
And the reason is that everyone's gung-ho at the start of a war, then slowly the popularity dissipates, and we have our national treasure, our men and women getting killed in the field of battle.
Uh, then the war gets politicized, and then we say never mind.
And we don't fight wars also, Senator, to win the war.
If you're not gonna fight it to win it, and that means you gotta be brutal and you gotta really want to win it.
And if that's not the goal, we shouldn't be there.
We have no real we have no reason to put one American boot on the ground in Ukraine.
Do you agree?
Well, Sean, uh I would actually share with you a joke I recently heard by way of uh Ukrainians.
They are fighting so valiantly on their own.
It used to be a question of whether Ukraine would be able to join NATO.
Ukrainians are now joking, maybe NATO should get membership in Ukraine.
They have been val they have proven that they are willing to fight and die for their country.
That is very evident.
What we should do what we should do is provide them every kind of weapon and aircraft they need to defend their own country.
We should have been doing that months ago When we saw these Russian troops massing on their border.
You know, President Zelensky today uh asked President Biden to close the skies.
We can enable the Ukrainian army to close the skies itself, not only if we provided them the aircraft that they want and that Poland wants to give them, but also if we provide them advanced anti-aircraft and missile defense systems, which many of our NATO partners have and want to provide if the United States will support them and provide those NATO partners uh weapon systems to fill their uh order of battle should they make those transfers.
We should do that.
Again, we can help the Ukrainian people close their own skies while also continuing to destroy the mechanized advances on major cities like Kyiv and Maryopol and Cherny Chernohiv.
We can help them do this.
We don't have to do it for them.
Um, every war is different, Sean, and you have to take into account all the circumstances.
What Americans hate more than anything though is a naked war of aggression by a larger, more powerful country invading a neighbor.
You saw it in Kuwait in nineteen ninety, you see it in Ukraine in twenty twenty-two.
Uh one big difference here is that Ukraine is not itself a small country like Kuwait.
Ukraine has proven that it can defend itself and it has earned our support to defend itself.
I agree wholeheartedly.
And let's let's be very clear what's needed.
The javelins have have been extraordinarily effective.
The stinger missiles extraordinarily effective.
Uh you're right, they need more anti-aircraft, anti-missile defense systems.
That should be sent over as soon as possible.
And by the way, Europe also has an obligation to step up.
It's their backyard, and they need to know that they they could be next on Putin's uh list of of territorial ambitions.
Uh I also agree with you that Joe Biden why did Joe Biden veto Poland's offer to give the MiGs?
Um you could put it in uh you know bureaucratic jargon that you hear in Washington a lot, Sean, like deterrence failed or Joe Biden self-deterred.
To put it in plain language that folks in Arkansas can understand, Joe Biden got scared.
Vladimir Putin scared Joe Biden by threatening to escalate the war.
Do you really think that Vladimir Putin, after seeing his military perform against Ukraine's army, wants a piece of us?
They probably don't even want a piece of the Polish army, Sean.
I mean, right now Joe Biden reminds me of all the Union generals who had failed for two years against Robert E. Lee when U.S. Grant finally showed up in the spring of 1864, and he told his subordinate commanders, I am sick and tired of hearing what Robert E. Lee is going to do to us.
You all think that he's going to do a double somersault and land at a rear and both of our flanks at the same time.
Go back to your commands and figure out what you're going to do to Robert Lee.
That's what Biden needs to be doing right now.
Figure out what we're going to do to put Vladimir Putin on the back foot as opposed to constantly being on the back foot ourselves.
I would agree.
I think Putin overestimated his military might and strength and and he did not foresee the resolve of the Ukrainian insurgency which has developed.
I think President Zelensky, I uh I've always had questions about corruption like Donald Trump did in that infamous phone call about Ukraine.
There's been so much corruption over the years, and I didn't know a whole lot about them, but I have been impressed with the fact that if this former comedian, uh now president of Ukraine, didn't do what a lot of leaders of countries do in moments like this, and that's jump on a private jet, seek asylum somewhere else, fill a plane with you know gold and and silver and currency and steal millions of millions of dollars and then live live on the beach the rest of your life and don't give a rip about what happens to your country.
He's he's in the thick of things, he's in the fight of this.
And if the Russians, in fact, that have created a perimeter around Kyiv, if they topple Kyiv, my bet is probably Zelensky's life is over.
And I pray to God that doesn't happen.
That that may very well be the case, Sean, but you're a hundred percent right that he has inspired his people.
Uh he has not fleed.
He didn't flee like Ashraf Ghani fled from Afghanistan.
Um he has stood and he has fought.
He even has the bravery to conduct these interviews and travel to meet wounded soldiers.
I mean, Kyiv is big, Sean, but it's not that big.
He actually gave out his exact Location, which which is insane to me because we know that Putin sent in mercenaries just to assassinate them.
Yeah, and and Sean, uh about our allies uh and their records, I would say this.
Um if we only want perfect allies, we'll have no allies at all.
Because all of us are imperfect.
By the way, we're not the perfect ally either at times.
Of course not.
I hate to say it, the world's not looking at Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Nancy Pelosi with any degree of confidence.
I can assure you of that.
Yeah, and and if like Kuwait in nineteen ninety was not a perfect democracy, nor is it today, Sean.
Um so Ukraine was probably not anyone's model of democratic governance or economic reform.
But you know what they were an independent nation that deserved the right to chart its own course, to choose its own path, and to make its own mistakes, just like Kuwait in nineteen ninety.
They did not deserve to be the victim of a brutal naked war of aggression.
And especially maybe especially more than almost any other nation.
After what they went through in the 20th century with the Russian Civil War and the Holodomor in the 1930s, in which Stalin exterminated four or five million Ukrainians through hunger extermination, World War II and the fighting that happened on Ukrainian soil from 1941 to 1943,
the ongoing fight uh against Moscow after World War II, maybe more than most places in the world, Ukraine, no matter what you think of its domestic institutions, deserved a chance to chart its own course in the world.
That's exactly what all those Ukrainians are fighting for right now.
Quick break.
We'll come back more with Senator Tom Cotton on the other side.
Then we'll get to your calls.
Final half hour of the show.
800-941-SHAWN, our number if you want to be a part of the program.
All right, we continue now.
Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas is with us.
What do you think?
If where do you think Putin's territorial ambitions stop?
You know, for example, when he bombed very close to the border of Poland, he obviously wanted to send a message to Poland, you better stop arming the Ukrainians.
Poland's is standing strong, and they have accepted so many refugees, almost headed towards the three million refugee mark uh at this point, people trying to get the hell out of there, and you can't blame them.
Um that was what was so powerful about Zelensky's um video today.
But what if the territorial ambitions now get to NATO?
And that means maybe the Baltics, maybe Estonia, Lithuania, uh Latvia.
Uh do you believe that NATO has the resolve on on and the commitment to Article V an attack against one as an attack against all?
Do you believe at that moment the United States stands by its alliance, its commitment, and would get into the war that Vladimir starts?
Um I hope we have that resolve, because if we don't, then there will be no end to Vladimir Putin's ambitions.
I mean, he lives by Vladimir Lenin's dictates of bayonet fighting.
Push and if you feel mush, proceed.
If you feel steel, withdraw.
Uh he is pushed into steel up against the Ukrainian people.
The question is whether President Biden will lead NATO to continue steely resolve.
I mean, you saw just yesterday, Sean, um the heads of state from Poland and Czechia and Slovenia risked their lives to travel to Kyiv to meet with President Zelensky.
Pretty impressive.
Many of many of our NATO allies in Eastern Europe who lived under Russian domination in the Cold War are more than willing to fight back.
But they need the larger NATO countries, not just the United States, but Germany and France and Italy and the United Kingdom and Canada to have their back as well.
And as you said, Vladimir Putin struck within about 10 miles of the Polish border.
That was also an effort to try to intimidate President Biden and to scare them into not continuing to supply weapons into Europe.
Well, let me Donald Trump warned NATO and Donald Trump warned all of our allies that they were being foolish.
Not only were they not paying their fair share, we were paying more in terms of total dollar amount, but even more uh as a percentage of GDP To protect our NATO allies from Russia.
And then countries like Germany turned around and made billion dollar deals with Russia and Putin for energy.
What is the answer, the short-term answer to get our European NATO allies the energy they need as it is the lifeblood of the world's economy?
Um Sean, the former president went further than that in some cases.
If you remember, he scolded Germany at the United Nations for making it self-dependent on Russian gas.
But he even went further than that.
He gave uh Angela Merkel a white flag of surrender to Russia.
And and they and everyone rolled their eyes and acted like he was being an impertinent little kid at the dinner table.
When in reality, that's exactly what Germany did.
Um you're right that we need to support our European partners uh with energy needs.
We need to produce more of our own energy so we can do exactly that.
The president needs to get off the dime and improve every single permit for a liquefied natural gas export facility so we can produce more American gas and send it to Europe.
Fortunately, we're about to go into the spring and summer months where the demand for gas will plummet in Europe.
Uh we also have the opportunity to work with partners like Australia and Qatar that produce a lot a lot of natural gas.
By the way, even the pipeline that Israel wants to build, the Mediterranean pipeline.
And that's a that's another example.
So we should we should be doing everything we can to get as much oil and gas on the market from places besides Russia and Iran and Venezuela, which is the exact opposite of what Joe Biden is doing right now.
Uh anyway, Senator Cotton, we always appreciate your reason, your sense, your your patriotism, your commitment to your country, our national defense.
Uh, you're doing a great job, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
Um, I'm going to get to a couple points here that I really want to ask you a question.
So I first of all, what I saw today uh with uh Zelensky addressing the uh the Congress.
You know, he mentioned that uh Joe Biden needs to be the leader of the free world, the leader of peace.
You know, I don't think he knows who Joe Biden is, first of all.
Um Joe Biden is not even the leader of his own administration.
Um he created this mess by allowing the squad to pull his hand into creating the Green New Deal because he is scared.
Now I want to try to tie this all in together and just follow me for a second.
He's scared.
He did not even mention the MiGs today.
He totally blew it off, like as if it didn't exist.
Like he never, like they were talking a foreign language.
Now here's here's my idea, and this is what I want to get to and ask you, Sean.
What's your opinion?
So we have had Russia push us around, bully us.
The thing that Joe Biden said, oh, I could stand toe to toe with him, which he obviously can't.
Um, but why not bring those MiGs over, bring them to Ramstein, and just park them there?
Technically, we're just taking them in for a little maintenance.
We're not we're not sending them over.
He never said, you know, Putin never said if we're so worried about escalating, he never said we couldn't take the airplanes in, or we're gonna continue to run scared.
I mean, you know, bring them in.
You've honed in, I gotta interrupt you here for one second.
You've honed in on the word that is that should be in the forefront of people's mind.
Joe Biden is fearful of doing anything that might anger Vladimir Putin.
And that is the weakness that incurs further aggression.
You know, if Vladimir Putin says uh it may go nuclear, and he and they put out these pronouncements, the our our our intelligence community thinks that he might use chemical weapons.
It's all Putin's design to scare the living Adam Schiff out of Joe Biden, so Joe Biden is afraid to act.
There's not a damn bit of difference if you provide anti-aircraft, anti-missile defense systems, javelins, stingers, and also allow the Polish uh government to provide the MiGs.
But Joe was fearful, and Joe vetoed it.
To me, he should have said, I think that's a great idea.
You work it out with them.
That's all he had to say.
And not not even say another word about it.
And look, the the fact that that they are a nuclear power, sure, you've got to factor that in because that's a extremely dangerous scenario.
But but we to the the thought that we're gonna be crippled out of fear, you cannot make good decisions if you are afraid.
The the word confidence comes from from Latin with deity.
It There's a sometimes there's a moral right and a moral wrong, and it's not political.
Seeing mass graves, dead children in the street, neighborhoods leveled, apartment buildings leveled, indiscriminate bombings, uh a sovereign country invaded, and uh Ukrainian people that want to defend their country and providing them the means, the arms to do so without putting one American boot on the ground and to fight back against this tyranny and this murdering dictator is just simply the right thing to do.
It's what Reagan did with the Mujahideen, he did it with the freedom fight of Contras in Nicaragua.
Uh it's you know what?
It this is a no-brainer.
It doesn't have to be that complicated.
Now if Putin wants to expand his his territorial ambitions, we better be ready for it.
We better increase the defense spending budget.
We better be ready for for conflict down the road because Putin is not a stable figure in my mind.
But for America not to show at all times strength, and if he says he'll use this, he needs to be messaged back.
You do that, and you will be obliterated.
That's the end of it.
Now, unfortunately, we live in a world where these weapons exist.
Thank God we have enough of them ourselves.
That's my take.
I'll give you the last word.
Thank you.
Um so here's my idea um as far as the uh oil problem that we're having right now and the cost.
Um obviously we need this.
It's not like we're gonna create electric cars that everybody's gonna be able to just jump in and go and drive anytime soon.
So why not go ahead?
Let's get the oil from Canada from Mexico.
Let's let's explore in our own country.
Let's get that up and going.
Let's let's make a deal with um you know, with the Green New Field Squad and say, hey guys, we need to come out of this as a team.
At the end of the day, we're all Americans.
We need to fight for our wasting your time.
If you look at the Democratic Socialist today, there was an article out today.
Progressive Democrats in the House of Representatives are planning to publicly start a campaign to urge Biden to ban all oil drilling on federal lands, even amidst this record gas prices, and and our allies in need.
He doesn't, they don't care.
In their minds, they're saving the planet.
We only have 10 years left, according to AOC.
So there's not going to be any deal with them.
The only way to deal with them is to defeat them at the ballot box, and that's why this election in November is so so very important.
All right, but I'm gonna move on.
Uday, thank you.
Kentucky, Kevin, you're next on the Sean Hannity show.
Hey, Sean, first I want to thank you for allowing me to be on the show today.
Thank you for calling.
I'm actually a veteran of the military.
I served 10 years, and I'm now an underground coal miner in Kentucky.
First, thank you for serving your country.
Secondly, man, I don't know how you do that job.
First of all, I'm claustrophobic.
I don't think I do well down there.
And number two, the health risks are very severe, even with the new equipment that I know they provide you guys.
That's correct.
Man, I'll call him because in the vice presidential debate when it was Joe Biden and Sarah Palin debating.
Sarah Palin had said that we should drill in Alaska.
She was all for it.
Biden said no, that we need to have more green coal burning factories.
Well, why are the power plants that were coal burning now shut down when Obama and Biden take office?
And on top of that, when they had the freeze in Texas, the last coal burning plants that are around are the ones that sent the power to Texas so Texas could survive.
You cannot underestimate the impact that new green dealism and the climate change alarmists cult their impact on the international situation we're now facing.
Because it's it's why Germany gave up nuclear power and became more reliant on Russian energy.
Uh it's the new Green Deal that caused Biden to abandon energy independence and America being a net exporter of energy.
That has been for us a national security disaster.
We have paid the price.
It has contributed greatly to this 40-year high in inflation, and there is there is No signs at all that Joe Biden or the Democrats in any way are going to go back to the policies that work so well under Donald Trump.
The only way to get out of this problem is to elect a president that believes in energy independence.
That's the only way we're going to get there.
We can win Congress, we can win the House, and maybe even the Senate.
But if we don't have the presidency, we can't change the policy.
And this is this is the next what, two almost three years of of this administration that we're stuck with.
These are the policies they will cling to.
It's like a religion to them.
It's a cultish religion to them.
And they're wrong on the science, but don't ever say that.
My gosh, you first it was, you know, the world, the new ice age is coming in the 1970s.
Then it became the world is about to burn up.
And then all of a sudden, cooling happened again.
We'll just call it climate change, but really it's about socialism and new green dealism, because the new Green Deal is just a name to describe a plan that gets socialism in America.
Anyway, stay safe in those coal mines.
Please send my best to your fellow coal miners.
You play a very pivotal role in the lifeblood of uh the world's energy.
We appreciate your hard work and what you do, and that's not an easy job.
Uh Michigan, we say hi to Tom and uh who's joining us.
Tom, how are you?
Glad you called.
Thanks for being with us.
Sean, how are you today, sir?
I'm good, sir.
What's going on?
Well, as I'm driving through Michigan back to uh Chicago, and I'm looking at some of the windmills turning in some of them, some of them aren't.
I I I really think that this needs to be really clearly understood that quite honestly, some of the blood is on these these green new dealers and this Democratic Party.
Uh and listen, some people like Trump, some people don't.
What this man did and what he told the uh the NATO and what he's done with gas prices and HBCUs and uh opportunity zones.
I mean, I I I don't want to hear that Donald Trump didn't do things the right way.
He may rub you the wrong way, that's fine.
But I'm telling you something right now.
The fact that we have a hundred years worth of oil and natural resources, and people are dying in Ukraine, the babies are dying, because we can't choke the lifeblood out of Putin's war machine with manual.
Hey, go forget about the country disappearing or the the world in 20, 30, 40, 50 years.
There are people disappearing today.
They're being wiped off the face of the earth by an absolute narcissistic thug.
And and you can give them MIGs and give them, let's take the oil and gas away.
Let's help the middle income people of this country once and for all.
This is absolutely crazy.
It's crazy, Sean, that we can be energy independent, and we're not.
It is it is a form of like suicide of a country.
It's it it has compromised our national security, our economic security.
It has hurt the poor and the middle class the most.
It is the dumbest policies that you could ever implement that any country could ever implement, especially considering the vast resources we have here.
You're right on the money.
Last question.
And and I don't know if you guys do polling or for your show.
How many people are in favor of everything?
Drilling, uh natural uh we already know the answer.
It's in the high 70s.
Okay, well, then there you go.
Seventy percent of the country is basically begging and asking the Democratic Party and Joe Biden to go ahead and and postpone or put off.
I'm not even asking you to do that.
Do whatever you have to do, but let's go get the stuff in the ground.
Let's squeeze.
People are dying because of these.
And I'll tell you something.
Wisconsin and Georgia and Arizona, I hold all you accountable as well because you're the man, you're the state that put Joe Biden in the office.
And I gotta tell you, those people uh made a huge, huge mistake.
And I thank you for taking my call, and I gotta tell you what you do is a great service to this country because it's one against a hundred, and that's just the way it stacks up.
You're the only voice, the only network that stands up for the middle of this country.
And and God bless you and and everybody at Fox, and I'll tell you what, don't ever give up, okay, brother?
Never giving up.
It's not in my DNA, it's not in my blood.
They'll have to take me out kicking and screaming.
Um it's too important.
Um, these are these are really, really critical times.
This election is a really critical election, but I appreciate your support.
But also, Tom, remember this it's all hands on deck.
There's no one talk show host, there's no one host of any show, there's not not one network of any people.
It's gonna take the American people and their resolve to right this ship.
It's an all hands-on deck moment.
It's we're all spokes in a wheel.
Every vote counts.
And if you just vote and make it a priority, then we can make a difference.
We also need election integrity measures adopted.
Anyway, appreciate it, Tom.
Uh Brandon is in Missouri.
Brandon Hi, how are you?
Glad you called.
Thanks for being with us.
Thank you so much for having me on.
I've been a fan of yours for nearly a decade.
Wow, thank you, Brandon.
It means a lot to me.
So I'm a truck driver.
And um, you know, with the vaccine mandates that Biden tried to push through OSHA, um, you know, our company, I luckily work for a great company, and they came out and told us immediately that we will not uh mandate any of our employees to take the vaccine.
We if they if this does become law, we will have to do the testing, right?
Well, I have a lot of truck driver friends.
I've been truck uh truck driver now for uh uh fourteen years, and uh a lot of I have a lot of friends who weren't so lucky that have lost their jobs.
Even after the mandates were shot down, um their companies kept them in place.
You know, trucking is a cardiovascular system in the United States.
Everything in stores, everything in your house, literally everything is moved through trucks.
By the way, I think there is a greater appreciation of how important a role you play in in terms of the overall supply chain, the economy, etc.
And I gotta tell you something.
I have a lot of friends in the trucking industry, just so happens, and they told me under no circumstances are they gonna force these guys to get the shot.
They said they won't have any drivers.
They won't do it.
They're not going, they've made up their mind.
They they do not, they're gonna make up their own minds.
And the companies are like, we're not doing it.
We don't care what they say.
Yeah, I actually remember back in uh 2015 or 2016, uh, you I well listen to your show every day.
Uh you actually paid for a guy to go to trucking school, and then he turned around later and uh, you know, decided to vote for Hillary.
But uh you used to bring him on once in a while.
Um, but yeah, anyways, yeah.
And right now we're actually have a massive uh truck driver shortage.
It's uh between sixty and eighty thousand drivers, and you're going to tackle industry that is overwhelmingly conservative.
The general by the way, the guy you're talking about is Tavaris.
He's a great guy.
And you know what?
What's the ladies with him, Linda?
Is he doing okay?
I mean, you know, he's still trucking, so that's a good thing.
He's still trucking.
And I made a deal with him.
I said, Okay, you gotta do these things.
If I pay for your truck in school, then you gotta just you do your part, I'll do my part.
And he did his part.
Um, but I do think there is, Brandon, an appreciation for the work that you and your fellow truckers do every day.
Everything we buy in every store is because of all of you.
I wish I had more time.
Now, are you an independent trucker or you work for a company?
Uh I work for a company.
I'm I used to be an unruck.
But if I could say one more thing before I go, general sentiment amongst truck drivers is let's go, Brandon.
Oh, I love it.
Yeah, I think you're right about that.
Anyway, appreciate it, Brandon.
All right, that's gonna wrap things up for today.
Uh full complete coverage of what's happening in Ukraine.
Things ratcheted up as Vladimir Putin now is being mocked up by the world.
Uh the bombing has now intensified greatly in the last 24 hours.
Uh, Senator John Kennedy says we are already at war with Russia, and we need to win it militarily and economically.
We'll find out what he means by that.
Mike Pompeo tonight um will take you to a hospital in Ukraine, a field hospital, and we'll hear from Mark Meadows, Mike Huckabee, and Victor Davis Hansen.
News you'll never get from the media mob, nine Eastern tonight.