This assessment of Sen. Tom Cotton, reported by an MSNBC reporter, is not a compliment.
Just interviews @LindseyGrahamSC – says up to POTUS to decide what he wants in an immigration deal & stick with it. He won’t vote for 30 day CR. Dinged @TomCottonAR as “Steve King of the Senate.” Stay tuned to @MSNBC
— Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) January 19, 2018
If you didn’t know, Rep. Steve King is nuts.
UPDATE: Here’s more on Graham’s remarks. He’s one of several Republican senators who won’t go along with the stopgap House spending bill, meaning Republicans can’t muster a majority of the Senate from their own party. He blames Trump for taking guidance from Cotton and Stephen Miller.
Trump earlier this week rejected a bipartisan deal that would have protected DACA beneficiaries and cleared the way for a funding bill, after initially expressing a willingness to sign such a deal. Graham laid the blame for the impasse on Trump’s flip-flop and his listening to bad advice from two people: White House aide Stephen Miller and freshman Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR).
“I think the change comes about from people like Mr. Miller,” Graham said. “Mr. Miller is well-known in the Senate for having views that are outside the mainstream.” Graham observed that the “Steven Miller approach to immigration has no viability.”
He expressed openness to solutions, but said the Trump White House is taking a “a hard-edged approach” that would not fly even in the GOP-controlled U.S. Senate. “The Tom Cotton approach has no viability here. He’s become sort of the Steve King of the Senate. I like Tom but on immigration, he’s putting something on the table that there’s just no market for in phase one.” (Rep. Steve King (R-IA) is an immigration hardliner with a long history of racist comments.)