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From Fox News: Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., turned the tables during an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, invoking Kamala Harris’ past rhetoric on “demilitarizing” schools in a tense on-air exchange.
Cotton appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” to discuss the tragic Apalachee High School shooting in which two teachers and two students were killed last week. The GOP lawmaker attempted to set the record straight after Bash asked him about an Associated Press headline last week that implied that JD Vance had dismissed school shootings as a “fact of life.”
The AP headline was later replaced after Vance’s team and online critics deemed it blatantly misleading, noting that at a rally in Phoenix last week, Vance remarked on the school shooting, “I don’t like that this is a fact of life…” before calling for heightened security for schools.
“Do you accept that school shootings like this are just a way of life now?” Bash asked Cotton.
Cotton fired back, “”No, absolutely not and JD Vance doesn’t either. He said he doesn’t want them to be a fact of life. And this week, the Associated Press got caught distorting that quote from him so bad that they had to retract it.”
Then Cotton delivered the grand slam, noting that the shooting “wasn’t as bad as it might have been because there was a police officer on the school premises that was able to neutralize the shooter.”
“Kamala Harris wants to take police officers out of schools. She’s said it in the past,” Cotton declared, recalling the moment in 2019 when then-Senator Harris voiced her support for removing police officers from schools in an effort to “demilitarize” the school.
“That’s her position,” Cotton said. “That’s not surprising, because she’s consistently taken positions against law enforcement throughout her career as a San Francisco liberal. If that police officer hadn’t been there, if Kamala Harris had gotten her way, many more students and teachers might have been killed.”
WATCH:
Dana Bash absolutely floored by Tom Cotton’s answer on school shootings, by highlighting Kamala’s record on taking police out of schools:
Dana Bash: “Do you accept that school shootings like this are just a way of life now?”
Tom Cotton: “It wasn’t as bad as it might have been… pic.twitter.com/v8mSajlCyW— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) September 8, 2024
“What we need to do about … demilitarizing our schools and taking police officers out of schools. We need to deal with the reality and speak the truth about the inequities around school discipline. Where in particular, Black and Brown boys are being expelled and or suspended as young as, I’ve seen, as young as in elementary school,” Harris said in 2019 at an event in South Carolina.
The Trump War Room recently posted the newly surfaced video on social media.
Unsurfaced clip shows Kamala Harris talking about getting “police officers out of schools.” She’s a RADICAL. pic.twitter.com/VZhVQ60kMV
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 28, 2024
Ryan Petty, whose 14-year-old daughter Alaina was killed in the 2018b Parkland, Florida school shooting, blasted Harris, writing, “Wreckless. Radical. Kamala wants to make schools less safe. Your kids aren’t safe with Kamala Harris in office.”
Wreckless. Radical. Kamala wants to make schools less safe.
Your kids aren’t safe with Kamala Harris in office. https://t.co/bA3VTkytiS
— Ryan Petty (@rpetty) August 28, 2024
Andrew Pollack, whose 18-year-old daughter Meadow was also killed in the Parkland shooting, wrote, “This is sickening. My daughter was killed because Parkland didn’t have enough security. We need more school resource officers — not fewer!”
This is sickening.
My daughter was killed because Parkland didn’t have enough security.
We need more school resource officers — not fewer! https://t.co/9mDww7FjU8
— Andrew Pollack (@AndrewPollackFL) August 28, 2024
Tom Cotton turns tables on CNN’s Dana Bash on guns, brings up Harris’ past remarks on school shootings https://t.co/cg4XoLr7Zy
— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 8, 2024
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