Tom Cotton

My response would be, first, we don't spend that much money on them, in the context of the defense budget.

In the end, I think some kind of genuine action on our part is going to be necessary; otherwise, they will present us with a fait accompli in the South China Sea.

What kind of message did that send to families in Central America and South America about the risk they're willing to undertake to send their children to the United States through human traffickers and through coyotes?

Statements by American leaders, that essentially create a full employment opportunity for human traffickers are very damaging.

I don't think it's an especially moral policy what Chancellor Merkel has proposed in Europe.

There was uncommon consensus in the subcommittee hearing about the need for this next generation bomber.

Are we putting the kind of resources we need to into this immediate problem of the maintenance and flight readiness of these aircraft?

I think deterrence works best when deterrence is clear, as with relationships that we have with NATO, Taiwan, and so forth.

Do you think it is more humanitarian to preserve these munitions in our arsenal and, hopefully, deter them or any other munitions from ever having to be used, or to remove them from the arsenal and perhaps increase the likelihood of a…

I cannot believe that U.S. citizens would face this kind of treatment abroad, particularly with countries that are allies.

I believe that Section 702 is a vital national security tool. It's constitutional. It has multiple layers of oversight.

Why do you think that is? What are the key drivers that's causing all that?

I wish we had heard more of those concerns during the debate and before the vote on it.

Well, thank you very much, again, for your service.

Our country is not at war with the Taliban.

500 years of Russian history shows that it's actually the West that has more to fear from Russian aggression than Russia from the West.

We actually don't spend that much on our nuclear weapons.

On the contrary, we use our nuclear weapons every single day.

There's no more fundamental issue for the safety and security of the American people than our nuclear forces.

My time is concluding. I will say that in a program that spends billions of dollars over the years, tens of millions of dollars of costs to develop an American-made capability so we are not depending on our number geopolitical adversary's…

I continue to hear through official and personal channels from the pilots who were flying aircraft over Iraq and Syria's territory, as well as their families that tell me some pretty harrowing stories about those effectiveness rates.

The Pentagon in some ways is designed to procure the weapons and capabilities for the next generation's war as opposed to fight the war it is in right now.

I think based on the historical record, as well as their own investments, it suggests to me that Vladimir Putin's narrative about the West is maybe another classic Russian campaign of dezinformatsiya.

Given that countries like Poland and Latvia and Lithuania and Estonia have all chosen freely to join NATO, do you think there is any truth to his claims that these are lands that are traditionally oriented towards the east?

Whatever the response may be, even if it is not a public response, Vladimir Putin needs to understand it is a response.