Tom Cotton: “reserving the right to object, which I certainly will, I want to briefly address what the Senator from Illinois said…”

“reserving the right to object, which I certainly will, I want to briefly address what the Senator from Illinois said about my resolution condemning these two death sentence commutations. I want to acknowledge that the Senator from Illinois is a longtime and principled opponent of the death penalty, based I believe in part on genuine and deep faith convictions. He has had that conviction for years. As I have said, I can respect that. The Senator from Illinois presumably wants to see the commutation of the Mother Emanuel Church shooter, the Tree of Life synagogue shooter, and the Boston Marathon bomber. I strongly disagree. I can respect it. It is not what Joe Biden did. Joe Biden picked and chose which depraved murderers and rapists deserved to live and deserved to die, denying justice to the families of all those who were killed by anyone who wasn't totally politically toxic. Second, the Senator from Illinois said that he did not hear five words in my remarks. He repeatedly said he didn't hear five words in my remarks. Those five words he didn't hear are ``life without the possibility of parole.'' That is true--he didn't hear those words in my remarks. That is not what these murderers were sentenced to. They were sentenced by a jury of their peers to the death penalty. And one of them that I offered the resolution on, Anthony Battle, murdered a correctional officer while he was in prison for life.…”