Arkansas senator Tom Cotton defended Donald Trump’s track record of receiving false and misleading ratings from fact checkers Monday.
“I know a lot of people quibble with Donald Trump and some of his assertions, and he’s failed a few fact checking tests from fact checkers in the media,” Cotton said during a discussion with The Atlantic at the Republican National Convention. “I would suggest that fact checkers typically are liberal editorialists who are gussied up as fact checkers.”
The freshman senator accused fact checkers of making subjective arguments rather than objective observations.
“They’re making arguments about matters of opinion and policy, which is fine, but they shouldn’t be calling themselves fact checkers,” he said.
The Arkansas senator endorsed Trump in early May. Trump has since named Cotton “high on the list” for a position in his potential administration.
Though he and Trump have not met “one on one,” Cotton said that Trump met with Congress “as recently as last week.”
Cotton recognized that he and Trump had “some disagreements,” but praised the businessman for being “a very strong advocate for veterans” and for supporting an increase in the defense budget.
The freshman senator’s defense of Trump was a marked shift from his appearance at an Ohio delegation breakfast Monday morning, during which Cotton did not mention Trump by name.
