Sen. Tom Cotton on 2024 race: We know what we’ll get with Harris presidency
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., discusses several key election issues in a ‘Sunday Morning Futures’ exclusive interview. (ABC News)
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., scolded ABC News for failing to fact-check Vice President Kamala Harris' comment about U.S. troops during last week's presidential debate, accusing them of acting as a mouthpiece of the Harris campaign as new video appears to contradict her claim.
"ABC allowing Kamala Harris to say ‘no U.S. troops are in combat zones’ without any pushback or fact-checking is outrageous. This goes beyond bias--it's a media company effectively joining the Harris campaign," Cotton posted Tuesday on X.
During the debate last week, Harris claimed, "There is not one member of the United States military who is in active duty in a combat zone in any war zone around the world, the first time this century."
ABC MODERATORS SPARK FURY FOR AGGRESSIVE FACT-CHECKING OF TRUMP, EASY TREATMENT OF HARRIS
ABC News' David Muir and Linsey Davis, who moderated the debate, fact-checked former President Trump multiple times while failing to fact-check Harris at all.
On Sunday, ABC News' Martha Raddatz acknowledged that the network's fact-checkers found Harris' claim "to be false" despite the moderators not correcting her at the time.
"There are currently 900 U.S. military personnel in Syria, 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq. All have been under regular threat from drones and missiles for months. We also have action in the Red Sea. Also, every single day, the Navy SEALs, Delta Forces special operators can be part of any sort of deadly raid," she said.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during the second presidential debate at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia on Sept. 10. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
MILITARY EXPERTS REJECT HARRIS' CLAIM OF ‘NO US SOLDIERS IN COMBAT ZONES’ AS MISLEADING
The fury over the moderators' one-sided fact-checking came back into focus after Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., on Tuesday shared footage of American soldiers "under fire" in the Middle East, arguing that it disproves Harris' claims U.S. troops are not currently in harm's way around the globe.
"These attacks occurred within the last couple of weeks/months," Banks posted on X. "Reminder, Kamala Harris lied to the entire world last week when she said that we currently have no active duty troops deployed in war zones! Unfit to lead!"
Cotton similarly accused Harris of lying in a weekend appearance on "Sunday Morning Futures," telling host Maria Bartiromo, "I don't know where those two moderators were fact-checking Kamala Harris with that lie… I guess they were busy wrongly fact checking President Trump."
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., scolded ABC News for failing to fact-check Vice President Kamala Harris' comment about U.S. troops during last week's presidential debate. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Cotton said Harris' comment likely came as a "surprise to the thousands of troops we still have in places like Iraq and Syria that are getting repeatedly hit by mortars and drones by Iranian-backed terrorists because Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have appeased and emboldened by the Ayatollahs for four years."
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"It's just one more example of why she's a weak, failed San Francisco liberal who is not up to the job of being our commander in chief," he said.
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