'Ignore them': Tom Cotton tells GOP senators to treat MAGA influencers like 'MSNBC hosts'

24 June

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) speaking at the Republican National Convention on July 16, 2024 (Image: Screengrab via PBS NewsHour / YouTube)

One top Senate Republican is embracing a unique strategy in response to the growing divide between the foreign policy hawk wing of the GOP and the party's MAGA faction: Marginalizing the insurgency.

That's according to a Tuesday article by Axios' Stef W. Knight and Hans Nichols, who wrote that Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) is telling his Republican colleagues to brush off criticism from MAGA influencers. Citing two unnamed sources, Knight and Nichols wrote that Cotton told senators that when MAGA voices like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson criticize President Donald Trump's foreign policy in Iran, Cotton said senators should feel free to treat them "like they treat MSNBC hosts — ignore them."

Cotton reportedly made the remarks during a Senate Republican lunch event on Tuesday, and reminded his colleagues that Republican support for Trump's airstrikes on Iran last weekend remains strong. And while the Arkansas Republican didn't mention Carlson by name, he referenced a post Carlson wrote on his official X account listing his reasons the U.S. shouldn't get involved in a war with Iran.

"It goes without saying that there are very few Trump voters who’d support a regime change war in Iran. Donald Trump has argued loudly against reckless lunacy like this. Trump ran for president as a peace candidate. That’s what made him different from conventional Republicans. It’s why he won," Carlson wrote on June 4. "A war with Iran would amount to a profound betrayal of his supporters. It would end his presidency. That may explain why so many of Trump’s enemies are advocating for it."

The former Fox host particularly warned against U.S. military action in Iran, saying it could result in attacks on various American bases in the Middle East along with a surge in global oil prices that could "collapse our economy." Carlson's post observed that Americans would likely not be in favor of "$30 gasoline."

Cotton's remarks come a day after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said there was a "very big divide" in the Republican Party as a result of Trump's embrace of interventionist foreign policy. The far-right Georgia Republican maintained that she and Trump were in lockstep in their commitment to peace, but that the GOP itself is at risk of political collapse if it gets the U.S. embroiled in another foreign war.

Trump declared Monday that there was a "ceasefire" between Israel and Iran after roughly two weeks of escalating tensions between the two Middle Eastern superpowers. However, a senior Iranian leader told CNN shortly after Trump's announcement that Iran had not signed off on any cessation of hostilities, and that any attempt to insinuate they had done so was "a deception." Both nations continued conducting strikes against each other through the night, prompting Trump to go on an expletive-laden rant on Tuesday against both Israel and Iran.

Click here to read Axios' full report.

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