Cotton argues Trump, Reagan share common roots in GOP

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) in a new interview said former Presidents Trump and Reagan have similar roots in the Republican Party.

“Reagan understood what all Republicans should: We are elected to protect the American people and their prosperity and their freedom,” Cotton, widely seen as a potential future GOP candidate for president, told The Wall Street Journal in an interview.

“Both President Reagan and President Trump, who many people say represent these polar opposites between which we must choose, stood in that tradition,” he added.

Cotton spoke to the Journal before he is set to deliver remarks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California as part of a speaker series that explores the future of the GOP after Trump lost the election in 2020. He is scheduled to speak at the facility Monday night.

While Trump and Reagan did have a number of similarities — they both worked in the entertainment industry before politics, were members of the Democratic Party before switching to the GOP and secured the Republican nomination after rising above some internal opposition — their stances on trade and immigration differed, the Journal noted. Additionally, Reagan was optimistic while Trump at times describes the country as split and on the wrong path.

Cotton linked GOP’s Trump-Reagan roots to former President Andrew Jackson, who was known for being a populist, according to the Journal. Some advisers reportedly said Jackson was a role model of Trump’s.

“It is the heart of the Republican Party today,” Cotton said. “Republicans are the party of the common man. We stand for law and order, military strength, good jobs, high wages and sanity in our culture wars.”

Cotton has been among the Republican names floated as potential candidates for the 2024 presidential election. He has been a frequent guest on Fox News, criticizing President Biden and his policies, and has also met with Republican leaders in key election states like Iowa and New Hampshire.

Asked about a potential run in the next presidential cycle, Cotton told the Journal “When I turn my attention down the road towards elections, it will indeed first be to 2022.” 

“Once that election is over, we can move on to the next election,” he added.

In Monday’s remarks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, Cotton is expected to criticize Biden for the unfolding Russian invasion of Ukraine, arguing the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan incentivized Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to excerpts provided to the Journal.

He is expected to say that Putin “wagered that if the American president wouldn’t stand up to a depraved gang of seventh-century savages in Afghanistan, there was no way he would stand up to Russia.”

“After all, Joe Biden had signaled weakness, conciliation and appeasement to Putin from the very beginning,” he will add.

During the interview with the Journal, Cotton criticized Putin when asked if he agreed with Trump’s judgment of the Russian president as “smart.”

“He’s a ruthless dictator and he always has been, and he is responsible for this naked, unprovoked war of aggression,” Cotton told the newspaper.